But the bite never came. Long sword-like teeth hovered dangerously close as the dragon roared its frustration. Hot, fetid breath blasted her with drops of saliva. The beast swiveled its long neck to look up at one of the towers, and she felt its rumbling growl.
When it looked down, she threw the small knife hoping it might drop her. The blade missed its eye by a handbreadth. But it stuck in the soft flesh of the corner drawing bloody tears. The beast roared in pain. Its claws tightened, squeezing the breath from her. Her ribs creaked.
The dragon shook its head violently, sending the knife to the dirt. The great beast leapt for the wall of the Keep and with claws and wings climbed to the far tower. Crawling up onto the parapet, the dragon dropped her on the stone platform. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest.
She crawled as far from the angry serpent as possible, gasping for breath. But it was worrying at its own wounds. Her hands went to her aching ribs. She could feel the bones grinding with each tortured breath. The dragon’s talons had bent the metal plates inside her cuirass, their sharp edges digging into her body. She struggled out of the twisted armor and fell weakly to the platform, gulping for air and coughing blood.
A man emerged from the hole in the floor of the parapet. He was the man from the street in Iolair. The sorcerer from her nightmares. He said something in a foreign tongue to the dragon. It stared at him with unabashed hate and then launched itself from the tower with a distinctly disgruntled growl.
Sidonius turned to her.
Falin climbed shakily to her feet. Wrapping her arms around her ribcage to soothe the pain of breathing, she coughed again, tasting blood. Hopefully, Khoury had gotten the men into the hall because the dragon had no reason to spare any of them now.
“We meet again,” the sorcerer said.
Falin said nothing. He seemed larger inside his black robes, swollen like the bloated carcass of a drowned man she’d once seen.
“You’re right,” he said into the silence, “there’s no time to waste on pleasantries. Come. We have work.”
Falin didn’t move.
He turned back with a scowl. “It’s useless to fight me. Come along.”
He was right. Weaponless and badly hurt, she had no hope of winning but something in her resisted. Then, she remembered Cara somewhere inside the black stones, trapped and afraid. Cara needed her, and she’d promised Sorchia and Khoury that she’d keep her safe. So she limped toward the stairs, intending to go peacefully.
That is, until she looked into the yawning dark. A shock of terror froze her in place. I’m sorry, Cara, she thought. I can’t wait for Khoury in there.
When the wizard came up behind her, she sprang at him in desperation. Pain flared in her chest as she latched onto his staff, pulling it toward her to unbalance him as she tried to sweep his feet. But his legs were rooted like a tree in the ground. He dragged her close as if she weighed nothing.
“Fool. You cannot fight me.” He grabbed her wrist with fingers far stronger than she would have guessed. The twisting pressure on the small bones brought tears to her eyes, forcing her to release the staff. Then he twisted the arm further, sending pain up into her shoulder. Her knees buckled as the bones ground together, crumbling under the pressure. Pain darkened the edges of her vision.
He turned then and simply dragged her down the stairs by her wrist, each step sending new waves of pain through her crippled arm and crushed ribs.
When they reached the first landing an explosion sounded from below, shaking the stones of the tower. Rage suffused his face, and he cursed. Stalking to the window, he relaxed slightly. Falin saw the dark shadow of the dragon’s bulk swoop awkwardly past. “The dragon will finish the slow ones and the guards inside will give me enough time to finish.”
“Finish what?” she wheezed. She needed to understand why. Why he had ruined their lives.
“The spell, foolish girl. I can finally finish the spell properly.”
He yanked her roughly into a round room with writing on the floor. Cara waited atop a stone alter, chains dangling from her wrists and ankles. Falin’s insides quivered with weakness as she recognized the room of her nighttime torment. Her nightmares were finally about to become reality; she knew what came next.
When Cara turned her head, Falin saw she had a blackened eye and wondered what the rabbit could have done to earn it.
Cara gasped at the sight of her. “No, not her. Please, Father. I’ll do anything.”
Ignoring Cara’s pleas, Sidonius tossed the Huntress to the floor in front of him. She glared up at him with defiance, cradling her useless hand against her body.
“What spell are you talking about?” If she was going to die, she needed to know why.
“A kind of healing,” he replied. “And the freedom I’ve desired for longer than you’ve been alive.” He paced the circumference of the room making sure all was in order, adjusting the scroll on the pedestal and situating the crystals with care.
“You mean immortality?”
“Who told you that?” he hissed.
“You cannot change the order of things,” she said. “Death is part of life. No one is spared.”
“I will be,” he said. “I would have been timeless years ago except the spell didn’t work. All this time, I thought the incantation was flawed or perhaps I was casting it wrong. That is, until I saw you. Strange your companions never saw the resemblance.” He looked back and forth between them, studying them. “It is quite uncanny.”
Falin flicked her eyes to Cara’s pale face, trying to see the similarity he claimed existed. The one she hoped not to find. Cara was studying her face as well.
“You don’t need her,” Cara urged. “Let her go.”
Falin’s heart broke at Cara’s words, knowing that if either of them were to survive, it should be Cara—the original.
“Oh, but I do,” Sidonius said, his eyes locked onto Falin’s, his voice hard. “Now, get up there.”
Even as broken as she felt, Falin rebelled. She spat and watched the bloody spittle roll down the front of his clothes. When he took a threatening step toward her, she staggered to her feet preparing to meet his onslaught.
“Defiant to a fault.” He sneered and shoved her hard, sending her flying backward and almost onto the altar. “This is exactly why I excised you.” A bout of coughing kept her busy as he lifted her the rest of the way up and tied her wrists and ankles.
ELLIS’S OIL AND stone catapult shot had been perfect, Khoury thought as he stepped over the rubble of the front door. Inside the darkened Keep, he found another knot of Sidonius’s bewitched guards. Drawing two swords, the captain viciously attacked the nearest man. His side throbbed with each stroke, but even worse was the gathering fear in his heart. Sidonius had both women; time was running out.
Archer charged in from Khoury’s left, sweeping his two-handed sword in a wide arch to force the conscripts back. A guard lunged at Khoury from the right, and he easily parried the strike as Violet charged in-between the captain and Archer, swinging her blades in a wide arch. One unfortunate guard was too slow and went to the ground, his belly sliced wide. The three mercenaries forced the guards away from the doorway, opening up more space to bring in men from outside. A third mercenary stepped up, holding two attackers at bay with sword and shield as Bradan slipped in behind Khoury, his mace momentarily useless.
Khoury stabbed another guard and pressed his advantage, using the body to shield him as he slid along the wall toward the rear door. Beyond it was the inner courtyard, the library and the stairs to what had to be Sidonius’s private wing of the Keep. Bradan stepped into the hole Khoury left behind and more men came in behind them, escaping the roar of dragonfire in the bailey. Soon Khoury’s men had overpowered the small cadre of conscripts.
As they gathered in the hall to press on, the inner door burst open and more guards rushed in. Khoury’s men were ready and they held their ground. Gaining control of the doorway, they forced the guards back out into the hall. Khoury ke
pt close to the wall on the right, trying to bypass the guards and get to the tower. Parrying a slash from the nearest man’s sword, he kicked an undefended knee and sent the man to the floor. Skewering the guard with one blade, he parried a second who jumped into the opening.
“Archer, Bradan,” he shouted, “this way.” He jerked his head toward the right as he hugged the wall. Bradan nodded, and he and Archer followed.
Khoury swung his double blades with increasing fury. Every step took too long. Haste quivered in his chest. He had to find them. He rounded the corner, relieved to see the hallway to the stairs was relatively empty. Archer and Bradan were behind him, still embroiled with the main group of guards. Archer called to him to wait, but Khoury pressed on, driven by the urgency in his heart. He hurried up the hall, swinging carelessly at anyone in his way, until he was beyond them, taking the stairs two at a time.
EXCISED HER?
Cara didn’t understand what he meant, but a cold dread settled in her bones. Was Falin the “her” Sidonius had rambled about, the one he needed? The one Khoury would bring?
As Sidonius took his place at the pedestal, Cara braced for the pain. Would the forest still be there to soothe her fear, or was that gone too? Surprisingly, Sidonius pulled a crystal wand from within his robes and instead of the guttural chanting began to hum.
What new evil was this?
He admired the gleam of light through the shard with a grim smile. As long as her forearm, its smoky-orange planes tapered to a fine point. She’d seen it before. In his memories.
“The soul knife,” Falin said.
How did she know what that was?
Such wondering was cut short as Sidonius wove the wand through the air over them. It glowed with power as his humming grew louder.
Soul knife, Cara thought, struggling to force the pieces into a pattern. Bradan claimed she was missing part of her soul. Had Sidonius done it? And what did Falin know about this? She squirmed, trying to get a hand close to Falin’s skin.
“You see, daughters…” Sidonius said, watching the glowing oranges trails of smoke.
“I’m not your daughter and neither is she.” Falin lunged futilely against her bonds. He stepped out of reach without breaking the cadence of his movement, and she dropped back to the stone table with a groan, but not before Cara had shifted her arm closer to the Huntress. She could almost touch Falin’s arm.
Sidonius scowled at them, sending a familiar quake of fear through Cara.
“You’re right. You were…an unexpected windfall. This ritual requires magical blood. Kidnapping a grown sorcerer would have been far too troublesome.”
Sidonius continued moving the crystal, the trails of light lingering like letters in the air.
“When the Barakani Regent hired me to dispose of the Prince Gideon and his Corthan wife, the contract required their demise. But it made no provisions for their newborn, a child who would grow into her impressive magical lineage. So, I took the baby. After all, if one is to live forever, a few decades is nothing.” Sidonius moved to the head of the table.
“Khoury is coming,” Falin whispered as Cara struggled to touch her skin.
She despaired at the once-reassuring words. It was one thing for Father to kill her, but she couldn’t bear to think of what he’d do to the captain. She hid her strangled sob behind the pale curtain of her hair, trying in vain to push away the despair that clung to her heart like frost. She had to do something, but she had no strength.
Strength, she thought. I could borrow some.
“Let me touch you,” she whispered to the Huntress so softly it was little more than a breath. The glowing wand passed over them, and her head swam dizzily. The world shimmered like a dream.
And then Falin shifted, pressing her bare arm into Cara’s palm.
She felt the Sister’s soothing strength like a balm. She was here to protect Cara. For Khoury’s sake. And that influx of courage blunted Cara’s fear and despair. The contact also brought memories. Memories of Sidonius in an alley, of Khoury in battle, Archer with his bow, and of another sorcerer talking about broken souls. She opened her eyes to see green eyes staring back at her, willing her to understand.
This woman wasn’t her Sister at all. Falin was the missing piece.
And Sidonius was going to join them into one mind again. And then kill them!
Falin’s face faded to hazy shadows and swirling colors, but her thoughts remained. Without me, you weren’t an adequate sacrifice. Once he is done with this spell, he can finally finish the other.
But it won’t fix him, Cara sent back through the growing fog of colors. Sidonius’s soul is nearly gone. Only the darkness will remain and be immortal.
Then we have to make sure, one way or another, he doesn’t finish this spell. The Huntress’s meaning was clear.
FEAR WASHED OVER Falin when Cara touched her and she struggled against the overwhelming tide. Was that how Cara had kept her from killing Rebeka—the power of unfamiliar remorse? She’d known better what to expect this time. Even though she’d lost the room with the table to a panorama of colored mist, she could communicate with Cara without Sidonius knowing. Still tied and weaponless, Falin struggled to find some advantage.
The spell he cast took away her pain, but it wasn’t long before she lost all feeling. She was weightless, without a body. She sensed the sorcerer as a heavy, dark presence to her right. Cara was here in the mists with her. Their connection made Cara stronger, but the emotions she threw at Falin felt nearly crippling. Was this how Cara felt all the time? No wonder she was useless.
A memory of Bradan’s lectures floated through her mind. He had tried to stress the use of discipline to make her magic work. To control it. If Falin was her strength, then her magic had been flowing unguided, like a sluice without a gate. Perhaps together, they could attack Sidonius with magic. But how?
It was then Falin noticed another presence in the mist. It hovered over the two women, around them. Warm and kind, it seemed to fret over them, eager for restoration, reminding Falin of the Mothers when they’d urged her to save Archer. Was this another fractured part of them? Or was it something else, like the dark presence that inhabited Sidonius? The kind presence paged through her memories as well as Cara’s with feather-light fingers, sorting dream and nightmare, castle and woodland, placing images side by side, and replacing chaos with gentle order.
A soul who likes to fix things, Xantherus had said.
But Falin didn’t want Cara to know about the kisses she’d shared with the captain, about how she’d offered herself to him. And so, she pushed those memories down and hid them. She was strong enough to keep them out of Cara’s awareness. At least for now.
Then Sidonius began a guttural chanting and Falin, whatever part of her remained, was tossed like a ship in a storm. Violent orange light pushed and tugged at her and Cara. Their minds clashed together helter-skelter like lost pages shoved haphazardly into a book and lashed closed. Dreams and memories assaulted her. Landscapes merged and swam, and faces, too. Torn in two directions, she was a dichotomy of views—at once helpless and strong, timid and fierce, magical and physical.
In the midst of the kaleidoscope, Falin recognized a placid pool and the ghost of a black wolf. This time when she looked into the mirroring water, her own face stared back. Boundaries of ego collapsed. She didn’t know who she was anymore, victim or Huntress. The kindness enveloped them, trying to mend them into the unity they should have had, searching for common ground they could share.
Together, they clung to a singular thought: Khoury was near and on his way.
HE HAD TO find them. And soon. Fear for the women drove Khoury up the stairs, two at a time, until he arrived breathless at the highest tower room. The door stood ajar but his attention was caught by the southern facing window. Below him, the courtyard burned and the dragon paced near the main gate, keeping out of sight of Ellis’s guard. Even if he managed to kill Sidonius now, they were trapped within the walls. The charred bodie
s littering the courtyard attested to the enormity of their losses already.
Forcing his mind to the present, Khoury crept to the door and peeked in. The sorcerer stood near an altar holding a glowing orange wand. Rainbow mists filled the air, swirling at the direction of the wand. But the women were nowhere to be seen. He cursed his luck. Where were they?
Then Sidonius stopped chanting, dropping his arms with a flick of the wand that went suddenly dark. The mists stopped swirling. The colors froze in midair. Wisps melted into rain that dripped onto the altar and where drops fell, they coalesced. Khoury watched in amazement as a body formed. A naked woman with newborn skin and wavy golden hair streaked with white arose from the droplets of color.
“And here you are,” Sidonius said, startling Khoury from the mesmerizing sight. “The two are now one.”
The sorcerer put the crystal wand in his robes and checked the woman on the altar. He felt for a pulse and eyed her intently. He shook her but she didn’t wake. The sorcerer grunted but turned back to the pedestal at the foot of the alter.
Though he’d just seen her materialize from mist, Khoury thought he recognized her face. He couldn’t say for sure. What had Sidonius just said? The two are now one. Two meaning Cara and Falin? And now one woman on the altar.
As Khoury’s mind struggled with the puzzle, the sorcerer took his position, straightening himself with a satisfied smile. When he started reading from the scroll before him, Khoury felt energy gather in the room. Then Sidonius drew a green stone from beneath his robes. It glowed warmly and a keening, like ghosts in the burial cliffs of home, echoed against the walls. The woman on the table writhed but remained unconscious.
Quest of the Dreamwalker (The Corthan Legacy Book 1) Page 37
