Unbroken Chain: The Darker Road (single books)

by Jaleigh Johnson

  “Let’s find out,” he said.

  The witch dodged the blow but not completely. A red line appeared on her right cheek, and a thin stream of blood ran down her face. She pressed one hand to the wound, and her eyes filled with fury.

  “I should have known a creature of shadow would cling to this realm tooth and claw. I’ll see you dragged to the void!” She threw up her hands and spoke words filled with power.

  Lightning struck the lake and gathered into a blinding ball that rolled across the surface of the water. Sree clenched her fists, and the ball split and took on the shape of two great hawks-birds made of lightning that swooped down upon Ashok.

  Out of instinct, Ashok fell into a crouch and raised his chain. He realized, too late, that metal was the worst defense against such magic. The birds struck him in the chest and legs. His muscles trembled uncontrollably as waves of pain rolled through his body. His heart stopped beating-he couldn’t catch his breath until the white fire rolled through him and dissipated.

  Ashok fell heavily on the raft. The pain sharpened his wits, but the lightning still affected his muscles. His body wouldn’t respond when he tried to push himself up. All he could do was curl into a ball as the witch strode toward him, her hands outstretched.

  “Some spirits still answer my call,” the hathran said with renewed confidence. “I am the protector of hearth and home, and I have fire too.”

  Ashok managed to roll onto his back. He met Sree’s eyes, but then his vision filled with the flames descending from her hands.

  Ilvani opened her eyes and found herself in the heart of the storm.

  She stood on the raft while the water churned and lightning split the sky. She felt the shock of it in her breast. The sky was black and starless, a void that centered on the lake and moved toward her, swallowing everything in its path.

  Yaraella’s monster, Ilvani thought, the force that denies us both peace.

  She looked down, and her heart leaped.

  The child Elina crouched beside her, a tiny speck in the violence. Ilvani reached for the girl, meaning to put herself between Elina and the storm. The child squirmed away from her grasp and pushed instead toward the heart of the storm, her arms outstretched and eyes full of desperate longing.

  In that instant, Ilvani understood everything, and cursed herself for a fool.

  Grabbing the child by the arm, Ilvani dragged Elina behind her. Thunder roared across the lake, deafening her, but Ilvani watched the black void descend upon her without fear.

  “Little snow rabbit,” she said. “You had more power than I thought.”

  Ashok rolled away from the flames, though he smelled his own charred hair and flesh. Again he absorbed the pain-the flames did not burn as hot as those in the nightmare. He laughed aloud.

  “Poor, insane creature.” Sree’s voice followed him as Ashok crawled to the edge of the raft to put the flames out in the water. “Haven’t you had enough of pain and suffering? Why won’t you lie down and let the shadows claim you?”

  Ashok bent over the side of the raft. A flicker of movement in the deep waters caught his attention. Human shapes rose up all around the raft, floating toward the surface, long pale hair drifting around their beautiful feminine faces. Ashok thought he heard whispers coming from the water.

  They were the voices of the spirits-Ilvani’s whisperers.

  “You don’t understand,” he told Sree mockingly. He rolled onto his back to extinguish the flames. “You’re not one of our people.”

  “Thank the gods for that,” Sree said. She raised her hands again, but a sudden explosion of water extinguished the fire that rolled from her hands. The lake spirits rose up-Ashok counted at least five of them-and snatched at Sree’s hair and cloak. Hissing and cooing, they dragged her across the raft.

  “No, wait! I must-” The hathran’s screams echoed in Ashok’s ears. She hurled fire at random. The lake spirits hissed in pain. Two of them dropped back into the water. “I must finish my task!”

  Ashok whipped his chain out. The end snagged Sree’s arm. Her casting disrupted, the witch fell to her knees under the weight of the spirits.

  “How does it feel to have them clawing at you?” Ashok said. Ruthless, he pulled his end of the chain. Off balance, Sree stumbled to the edge of the raft.

  Her eyes wide with shock and terror, she focused on Ashok an instant before the telthors pulled her into the lake. They dragged her beneath the churning water.

  Exhausted and trembling, Ashok closed his eyes. He didn’t have the strength to fight them if the telthors decided to take him too. A breath later, he heard the spirits dive back into the depths of the lake. The water from their passing fell on Ashok’s face.

  Ilvani, he thought, as his awareness started to fade, the path is clear now. Tempus, grant her peace.

  Ashok felt a burst of bitter amusement, that his final thoughts should include Tempus after all. Uwan would be pleased.

  “Enough,” Ilvani shouted at the void. “I know your name now-bitterness, rage, pain. Face me and answer for what you’ve done.”

  Lightning struck the raft at Ilvani’s feet, throwing her back. The force tore Elina from her-the child cowered at the raft’s edge, terrified. In the wake of the lightning, the void shrank back, and Yaraella stepped onto the raft.

  Her hair was wild, and a bloodstain covered the front of her dress. Something of the void lingered in her eyes, turning them black and fathomless like a shadar-kai’s.

  “It’s done,” she said, her voice full of such dark satisfaction that Ilvani shuddered. This was not the same woman she had encountered in the pinewoods. Hatred consumed this twisted creature. “I felt her die. Now we can be together, the three of us.”

  “You were the monster,” Ilvani said. “No spirit prevented you from passing on from this world.”

  “You’re right,” Yaraella said. “I stretched out my hands, and you took them. You anchored me to the world-you and Elina.” Her gaze rested on her child, and the shift in her emotions was stunning. Her face filled with love and tenderness that for an instant transformed her into a pure soul. But Ilvani wouldn’t be fooled again. She knew the threat Yaraella posed now.

  “You used my hands for your vengeance,” Ilvani said. She discovered her voice was strangely calm, remote. “Your hate burst out of me and the child and corrupted all it touched. It was my fault,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I didn’t know how to see through you. What will you do now, snow rabbit? You have no one left to hate.”

  “I will live on in my child and in you,” Yaraella said. She went down on her knees and reached out for Elina. “Our spirits are entwined.”

  Ilvani stepped forward to grab the child before she could run to her mother. “It will drive her mad and destroy us just as you’ve destroyed yourself. You’ve been here too long, little dead rabbit. You don’t have a body to go back to, and this child’s is too pure for you.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Yaraella said, her eyes alight with amusement that sickened Ilvani. “I need a vessel that’s already been tainted. What a mad, powerful witch we would make, Ilvani. Wychlaran and shadar-kai-the fey realm and the shadow. No world could hide from us.”

  At that, Ilvani smiled. Her reaction gave Yaraella pause. “You want to feel a shadar-kai’s soul? Little rabbit, that knife wound in your belly was nothing to the kind of pain you’ll know at my touch. You should leave this place while you still know yourself.”

  Yaraella lunged at her. Ilvani let her clawlike hands fasten onto her upper arms. Yaraella’s black gaze bored into her. Ilvani calmly leaned forward and pressed her lips against the witch’s.

  The Veil between the worlds, she thought, is no more difficult to penetrate than the barrier between souls.

  Ilvani ripped open the Veil between them.

  “First you’ll feel pain,” Ilvani said against the witch’s mouth. She parted her lips and poured blackfire into Yaraella. “If you don’t fight it, the pain can be the lover’s touch. If you
resist …”

  Yaraella’s body trembled. She held on to Ilvani to keep from falling. The blackfire filled her and spilled out of her eyes and mouth. She coughed and gagged and tried to breathe. Her hands went to Ilvani’s throat.

  “Pain … isn’t enough,” Yaraella said, her voice shredded by the fire. She dug her fingers into Ilvani’s throat.

  Ilvani reached up and tore the witch’s hands away. She was stronger than the snow rabbit now. “You’re wrong. The pain is everything. You’ll see. My soul is inside you now. You’ll see.”

  Yaraella cried out. Ilvani touched the witch’s chest and felt her heart beating a hard, erratic rhythm. Then her awareness narrowed. Her body faded, and she was somewhere else, in the dark.

  For a breath, Ilvani faltered. She didn’t know her way. Her soul flew free from her body, absorbed in Yaraella, in the darkness with the touch of the Feywild upon her. She didn’t know this place. What if she lost herself here-trapped and joined to the twisted witch forever? Yaraella would get what she wanted.

  Ilvani clenched her hand into a fist and felt an object scrape her palm. In the dark, she couldn’t see it, but she knew what it was-the piece of obsidian Ashok had given her. The difference between what was real and what wasn’t lay with her.

  “I’m still Ilvani,” she said. She gripped the stone until it pierced her flesh. The blood flowed like cleansing water. Ilvani let herself go, screaming as she released the pain and the blackfire in a wild rush.

  She heard Yaraella’s answering cry of anguish, but she didn’t relent. Her awareness was everywhere. Her soul overwhelmed Yaraella, tearing her apart as the wychlaran had tried to shatter Ilvani.

  “This is a shadar-kai soul,” Ilvani said. “Only a shadar-kai can survive the pain.”

  When it was over, Ilvani was a long time coming back to herself. She gathered up every piece of her soul, drawing them in protectively to the small light that was her essence.

  She was Ilvani, with souls and boxes of memories. Her flesh was the box. All she had to do was keep the box safe, the lid closed.

  All the while, she felt Elina’s presence, distant yet always beside her. But when she awoke, the little girl was gone. She was still on the raft, and she felt that the bonds of the ritual still held her.

  Why? Ilvani thought. Why hasn’t the circle been broken?

  Panic seized her. Had she truly banished Yaraella, or was she still here, holding Ilvani captive?

  Then she saw him on the lakeshore-the reason she was still here.

  Ilvani kneeled next to Ashok’s lifeless body. She clutched the obsidian stone-her lifeline. It had their blood on it, hers and Ashok’s.

  His eyes were closed. His scarred face looked more at peace than she’d ever seen it. She reached out her free hand, her fingers hovering above the skin of his face, his neck, and chest. Shadows bled from his body and encircled her hand.

  In a violent motion, she hurled the stone away and tried to grasp the dim vapor with her hands. There was no way to hold it. Her hands were useless again, always useless.

  “It’s too easy,” Ilvani whispered. Tears ran down her face, but she barely felt them. Her body was frozen. She couldn’t breathe under the weight of the ice. Playfully, mockingly, the shadows lingered at her fingertips, but when she moved, they scattered. Even her breath drove them away.

  She looked up and saw a figure striding toward her across the vast nowhere realm. He had to walk a long way, but when Ilvani saw his face at last, the ice tightened around her heart. Another moment and it would crush her.

  “Brother,” she said in a voice dredged up from the deep, frozen sea.

  “Well met, Ilvani,” Natan said. The cleric kneeled in front of her, with Ashok’s body between them. He touched Ashok’s chest, and more of the shadows drifted away. “You shouldn’t linger here, Sister. Living people aren’t welcome.”

  “Why did He let it happen?” Ilvani asked, her voice trembling.

  Natan said gently, “Why don’t you ask Him?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “Still stubborn. But you’ve come far, Sister, and I’m proud of you. You’re becoming what you were meant to be.”

  “What was he meant to be?” Ilvani said, looking down at Ashok’s dead face. “A shadow in the void?”

  Natan’s expression was full of sorrow. “Part of him wanted this, Sister-he welcomed it. Now that Ashok has seen it, a part of him thinks the void is inevitable. Death is the only certainty, so he embraced it harder than ever so the fear of it would not destroy him.”

  “Too easy,” she repeated in a hard voice. “Tempus must claim him.”

  Mild surprise lit Natan’s face. “Are you asking on his behalf?”

  “I shouldn’t have to!” Ilvani cried. “The gods don’t need my plea.”

  “Tempus does,” Natan said. “He cannot claim Ashok because Ashok shuns the gods. No one can touch his soul-”

  “Then I claim it,” Ilvani said. “By the Veil between this world and all others, I will keep his soul for him, until he decides where it belongs.”

  “You don’t have the power to change his fate,” Natan said. “Don’t you remember your own words, Sister?”

  “Then what’s the purpose!” Ilvani clenched her hands into fists and watched the shadows fly from her. “Why do I hear the whispers in the dark? Why do the spirits, the telthors, and the hateful ghosts pluck at me? What’s the purpose of making me see things that burn my eyes if I can’t change their fates?”

  Natan closed his eyes. A light suffused his skin and flushed the gray color golden. He was so beautiful, his scent so warm and real that Ilvani wanted to bury herself in it and fade away. When he opened his eyes, he looked content, full of something that blossomed from deep within him. Ilvani knew that look well. In life, he’d worn it every time Tempus spoke to him in a vision. The rapture was all the more intense in death. Natan was with her and yet far beyond her reach-he was at one with his god. She felt joy for him and at the same time an intense hatred and envy of Tempus.

  “There is a price for what you ask,” Natan said.

  “I’ll pay it,” Ilvani said immediately.

  Natan sighed. “You were always reckless, Sister.”

  I have nothing left to be afraid of, Ilvani thought. “What does Tempus ask?”

  Natan’s expression softened. “He wants you to be whole-to know that when you’re alone in the dark, you don’t have to hear the whispers unless you wish to. There are ways to silence the shadows, Ilvani, to see the deceptions in the void. The witches know. Tempus wants you to learn from them. You must find the strength to stand on your own for what’s to come.”

  She read the sadness in his eyes and understood. “You won’t come to me again, will you?”

  “I’m sorry,” her brother said. “You have everything you need, Ilvani. This last thing I can do for you, I do with joy.”

  Ilvani looked down. Natan held his hands out to her across Ashok’s chest. She clasped them, and the sensation almost broke her, it hurt so much. She let one choked sob escape and bent to kiss his knuckles.

  “I miss you,” she said.

  “And I you.”

  The golden light filled Ilvani’s hands. She looked up. Natan was gone, but the light spread from her hands to Ashok’s body and trapped the shadows.

  Finally, Ilvani thought. Souls were precious as memories and as insubstantial. But for this one moment, she held them in her hands. She wouldn’t let them fly away.

  She flung her arms wide to gather all the shadows.

  Ashok awoke to warmth and disorienting silence. He was lying on the raft in the middle of the witch’s circle. Sree was gone. The landscape-the lake and surrounding forest-was serene and quiet.

  Logically-if he could use the word-he knew he was dead, that this was some sort of spirit world, a mirror of Rashemen, but he wasn’t afraid. This was nothing like the realm of shadows where his father and brothers waited for him. And he wasn’t alone.

  Ilvani lay aslee
p beside him, her head resting on his chest.

  Ashok didn’t move, not wanting to disturb her peace. He felt her warm breath on his skin as she slept. The sky above them was full of slowly moving stars, turning and turning inward toward an inevitable vortex. They flashed red and blue, and they blazed brilliant white against the black field. Beneath the spiral, the moon rose, its crater face spilling milk white pools like waterfalls on the ground. Ashok felt utterly peaceful, but he wasn’t afraid of the sensation. His soul had never felt so fully a part of his physical form-whole and inviolate.

  He wondered vaguely how long they would stay in this mirror world. Not long, perhaps, and in a sudden flash of knowledge, Ashok understood that he wouldn’t remember this other realm, its moon, and its gently flowing stars. Nor would he be able to recall this sensation of completeness. He wondered if this was the mythical Feywild spoken of by the witches. Or was he truly dead? Had he shed the physical realm completely to become a pure soul?

  But Ilvani was there, an anchor in the peaceful, surreal landscape. Maybe she would be able to explain what it all meant. He was too tired to think about it now, so he let his eyes close. Just before he drifted off to sleep, he felt Ilvani’s hand touch his own. His fingers brushed her skin and the edges of a stone clutched in her palm. He held on to both and slept.

  Ilvani awoke from the ritual to violence.

  The treants came out of their madness, but not in time to stop their children from destroying the raft and breaking the ritual circle. Ilvani had the sensation of falling and heard the cries of the witches a breath before the lake swallowed all sound.

  The freezing water shocked her back to full awareness. She fumbled at the clasp of her long cloak. The weight of the saturated fabric and chains threatened to drag her down, but she ripped the garment over her head and thrust it away.

  She started to claw her way to the surface, when she sensed a presence near her in the water. It could have easily been an enemy, but something told her it wasn’t. Without thinking, she dived down and swam. The presence grew more distinct, and Ilvani reached out in the darkness.