Scion’s Sacrifice (The Guardians of Light Book 3)

by R. Michael Card

  “My father has no reason to lie to me.” Even as he said the words, his emotions clenched with uncertainty and a deeper, frustration-driven, anger. It was strong enough that she felt it clearly. His father lied to him all the time. It was the man’s nature.

  “We both know that’s not true. Aren’t you curious?” She was, certainly. If she could help him see his mother, perhaps that would begin the process of healing. Yet her curiousness went deeper still. What if the Blacklord was powerful enough to simply create this man from nothing, what did that say? Would there be any way to stop a man who could mimic the power of the Gods and create life? She wanted to know if Davar had a mother perhaps more than he did.

  He was curious too. She’d sensed it, yet he was still keeping Cassine at bay. He wasn’t going to give in easily. He didn’t want her inside his head any more than she already was. Searching through his soul for the connection to his mother was no easy task and would involve a deep scan through the fiber of his being. She already knew he didn’t like the fact that they’d been so closely connected earlier. She didn’t relish the thought of them ‘reconnecting’ either, but she couldn’t help but want to try, even if it meant sifting through that slimy soul once again.

  Why?

  His question rang through her with its usual endings why are you doing this? Why are you staying? And so many others.

  “You know why,” she said softly. If he could still feel as much from her as she could from him, he’d know she wanted to help him.

  “But why do you want to help me?” he asked, gruff. He was actually confused on that point. He didn’t know. Then it occurred to Cassine that she didn’t necessarily have a clear answer to that question either. She wanted to help everyone in need, but that wasn’t really a straight answer. Sure she was compelled to help, it was in her nature, but why him specifically and why now?

  She considered for a moment before she answered. “Because I think you’ve been dealt a great injustice.”

  He gave a harrumph with a dismissive grimace.

  She went on unperturbed, “You’ve never had any chance to explore who you really are. You were raised by a man of evil and he’s been in your head controlling you since you were a boy. You can’t deny I’m right. I know. I saw all of your thoughts earlier. You don’t really know who you are without him. Perhaps you’re the man you think you are… but you aren’t certain. So let me help you figure that out. If you find you are the terrible man you believe yourself to be, then I’ll go. I won’t want to be near you anyway. But you’ll never be certain unless you know everything about yourself and that includes knowing your mother.”

  He sniffed, chewing silently, glaring at her. She could sense his turmoil, the conflict within him to know more about who he was, and yet also not allow her to be right or get too close.

  “How?” He was still skeptical. I know of no way to do what you’re proposing and I’m a stronger multi-talent than you.

  “Water and soul are your weakest talents,” she said bluntly. They both knew it was true. “Soul is my strongest ability. I can search back through the line of your soul to the moment of your birth. Using some spirit, I can go even further back, to when she carried you and your soul would have been connected to hers. If indeed you had a mother, then I can link to her soul and reveal that to you. I’ve done it before.” It had been long ago when she’d only just been starting as a healer in her village. She’d helped orphans find out more about their parents.

  He grunted. It wasn’t an affirmation or a negation. She still felt the roil of emotions within him: hate, anger, curiosity, desire, traces of hope and even joy at the prospect of knowing his mother and starting to decipher who he was. There was also fear. He didn’t want her sifting around in his soul. He didn’t want to risk them touching and renewing the connection they’d had. Yet despite his fear, she knew it was still a tantalizing prospect for him.

  “And if I let you do this, you’ll free me from these?” He held up his manacled wrists.

  She nodded.

  Here again, she felt a surge of emotion, mostly his longing to be rejoined with his weapon. Though dark and twisted like him, it held a special place in his soul. The Blacklord had been the only father figure Davar had ever known and his sword, in many ways, was like a sibling.

  “Then do it.”

  She smiled. She’d gotten through to him. This could be the start of a great healing for him if he ever let it happen. “I should rest, it will take a lot and—”

  “Do it now!”

  She flinched at the intensity of his voice and the wave of jumbled emotions thrown her way.

  She drew a breath, giving herself a moment to recover, and said, “Fine, but I’ll need a moment to regain some strength, and I’ll need that last squirrel.” She pointed to the spit on the fire.

  He grunted with a nod. “Be quick about it.”

  The squirrel wasn’t quite ready yet, so she stood. “There’s a stream not far off into those woods.” She pointed. She’d passed it earlier when she’d been hunting. “I’m going to get some water and clean myself up a little. When I return, I’ll have that squirrel and we can begin.”

  He nodded again, and she left. She found the stream easily despite that evening shadows and darkness were growing deeper. She used her water talent to assess the water. It was clean and drinkable. She drank heavily knowing she was depleted. Then she stripped off her dress and waded into the stream. It only came to her knee at its deepest, but she crouched and quickly bathed herself. The stream was frigid, made of cold mountain waters. She used her fire talent and warmed herself a little. She scrubbed as best she could with her hands, even laid back to douse her hair and scrub it out as well.

  It didn’t take too long and when finished she waded out. She used her water talent to force the remaining drops off her until she was dry. She dressed, then had another long drink from a spot just upstream from where she’d bathed before returning to Davar.

  She’d needed that break. Being away from him dimmed their connection, which was tenuous now and only revealed the strongest thoughts or emotions when they were close to one another. She knew she was about to delve into the nearly unfathomable darkness of his soul and had wanted desperately to simply be alone and clean and fresh for a moment before she tried it.

  As she walked back, she grew more and more conflicted. She was afraid of what he might do once freed from those restraints. There were multiple fears actually. He was strong enough to rip her apart if he didn’t like what she was doing. So yes, she feared for her life, but she also feared for his. What if he rejected the light within and returned to the overwhelming darkness?

  Questions whirled in her mind: what would she find? What would he do once he had his Scion-Weapon back? Would she get the chance to fully heal him? Could she do it? Would he give her that much time and effort? It certainly didn’t seem likely, but she had to try. It was that last bit of determination that pushed her up the hill to return to him. Even though it might mean her life, she would do this.

  She returned and took the last squirrel from the spit, noticing a leg had been removed. It would do no good to glare at him; one look at his satisfied smile told her he’d done it just to spite her. A disapproving glance would only give him what he wanted. So she ate quietly, it would be enough.

  Once finished she readied herself, moved around the fire, and knelt next to him.

  It was full dark now, only the light of their fire and the stars above illuminated them.

  Being this close their connection was revived and she could feel his fear and uncertainty… or was that hers projected onto him? Apparently, neither of them was certain of what would happen next.

  “Lay back and relax. This may be very uncomfortable, but I’m sure you can cope with that.”

  He laughed as he laid back. “Do your worst.” Despite the nonchalant words, she could feel his resistance grow. Strong thoughts pushed into her mind. He didn’t like being in any sort of a submissive position. He�
��d never trusted anyone before in his life, so he couldn’t help but think this was some sort of trick or trap. Images flashed of all the ways he could hurt or incapacitate her if he needed to. He wasn’t worried that he could best her.

  “I don’t expect you to trust me,” she said softly as she positioned herself next to his upper torso. “But our connection will probably renew when I touch you in a moment. Go ahead and read all my intentions. I think you already know I have no trick up my sleeve. I just want to help you because… it’s who I am.”

  He glared at her.

  She began to unlace his shirt and her fingers brushed his skin reviving the connection. It was not as strong this time. Their minds, souls, and spirits merged, but it wasn’t nearly as jarring or as intense as it had been. Nor was it as deep. There were hidden corners, distant thoughts and feelings of his she couldn’t access. It was still uncomfortable and near to overwhelming, but not as shocking as the first time.

  Once again, she was forced to deal with the slick and slippery, inky nature of his essence. Just as she knew that he was gritting his teeth at the brightness of her soul and thoughts. But also he’d know she had no ill intentions, her motives were pure.

  She slid her hand under his shirt along the bulging muscle of his chest to a place over his heart. The heart was the source of blood and the part of the body most connected to the soul.

  His thoughts, as her hand pressed to the mountain that was his pectoral muscle, were far from pure. In a rather short time, he’d gone from images of how to hurt or subdue her to images of ripping away her dress and a whole barrage of thoughts that followed which made her blush and grow rather uncomfortably warm. His desire for her was intense. The fact that he knew she’d never been with a man seemed to stoke his lust even more. Something about being the one to deflower her excited him.

  These thoughts were not helping her do what she needed to do. She closed her eyes, all of his thoughts and hers warring within her. Slowly, carefully, she cleared her mind of his doubts and lust and fears as well as her own fears and curiosity at his raging emotions, focusing on her own soul. Then she made the connection with his.

  The initial connection was easy since they were linked. She focused still, digging deep into his soul. It was a slow process, grueling for them both as she sifted through the tangled jumble of his feelings and his very life essence. It helped that she was connected to spirit as well and could retrace his spirit-line back through his soul, back through so much torment and torture and vileness.

  Gods! His life had been one horror after another, forced to kill and do much worse. The atrocities his father had made him commit as a boy weren’t meant for any child to endure. She wept, though the sensation of the streams of tears on her cheeks was distant.

  She forced herself to go on, back even farther to the agonizing and terrifying moment of his birth.

  This is where things got that much harder. She delved further, before the moment of birth, to a place of physical, spiritual, and emotional darkness; made one-thousand fold darker for the brew of evil magic which had surrounded him. A person’s soul was not instilled at birth, but some time while they were still in the womb. So she was able to trace his soul into this place, though it was disorienting and difficult. As much as the soul exists, it isn’t fully formed. Emotions are only buds of the flowers they will eventually become in life. Things were murky here, like swimming through a muddy pond.

  Yet it was here, before he was born, that his spirit and soul would have been connected inseparable with his mother’s.

  Trying to find that connection however, was incredibly hard. Her ability with spirit wasn’t as strong as with soul. She groped and probed, trying to extend her essence out to that other person if indeed there had been anyone there. If there wasn’t, she could flounder in this dark and disorienting place for an eternity, searching for a spirit and soul that didn’t exist. This process was never easy, but usually if she just concentrated on the spirit-link, she could trace it to the mother. She grasped onto Davar’s spirit, or rather that remembered spirit of him as he’d been before he was even born and used that. She climbed that line of spirit like a rope up an unfathomable mountainside…

  And she found Davar’s mother.

  It was only for an instant, a flickered image of a woman, a heartbeat, one tortured moment as the face and pain of Davar’s mother became known to both of them. Despite the mere fraction of a moment they were connected to her, it was one of the most horrible things Cassine had ever felt. They couldn’t tell what was being done to the woman — and she thanked all the Gods for that — but they felt every inch of the woman’s agony. She was screaming. Not the yelling of someone cursing in pain, but the wordless, unending shriek of one far gone into torment. It clawed at their ears and tore at their souls.

  The scream was just the tip of the iceberg of horrific emotions and sensations. Her body and soul were being torn apart, shredded, twisted, and corrupted. This was how the Blacklord had gestated his son, with torment beyond reason.

  All of this was experienced in one terrible instant.

  Then the raw intensity of the woman’s soul-scream pushed Cassine’s essence right out of Davar.

  Cassine sat back, dazed, head aching, the scream of a long-dead woman still echoing in her mind. When she’d offered to help Davar find his mother, she’d never expected anything like that.

  “Gods,” she whispered and began to weep, too overwhelmed with pain and grief to do anything else.

  Chapter 4

  Davar stared at nothing but the remembrance of his mother’s torment. He hadn’t moved since Cassine had been thrust out of his soul by that same memory. He lay on the grass in the dark, the fire snapping and hissing not far away. His breathing came quick and shallow.

  He didn’t weep like Cassine, but he felt hot tears leave his eyes, running down into his ears. It was annoying, but he didn’t move to wipe the wetness away.

  He knew his father was cruel and evil. The Blacklord was literally heartless, having sacrificed his heart long ago in a ritual to gain immortality. Davar had had a vicious childhood, raised brutally to be the hard, dark man he was. His father cared for no one, not even him. He was a tool to his father, not family. He knew this and still couldn’t fathom the horrors that his mother had been subjected to.

  Despite having only experienced a single instant of her suffering, he knew enough of his father to surmise what the Blacklord had put that woman through: dark rituals and vile torture designed to inflict the maximum possible pain without killing her. The entire pregnancy she’d probably lived on the fine line where pain met death, until the day she birthed him and finally died.

  His father had been partly right. It had been dark magic that had, in part, shaped him into what he was today. Yet to see, to know what had happened to his mother was overwhelming. Davar didn’t shock easily, and yet he felt bile rise in his throat. He was horrified and angry. He hated his father for what he’d done and hated Cassine for having revealed it to him.

  She’d been a scion, his mother. He knew that now, though he didn’t know where this understanding had come from. He also suddenly understood why his father had so desperately wanted him to catch Senia alive. He’d wanted another scion woman to spawn a child for him.

  Davar should have been fine with that thought, but right now it disgusted him. Perhaps it was his connection with Cassine… or maybe even his brief vision of his mother, but he felt a purity within him which reviled what his father had planned for the scions.

  There was something about the sparkling stars and brilliant moon above him, the soft forest sounds, even Cassine’s weeping, which soothed him. It spoke of a peace and innocence which contrasted all the darkness within him. It resonated with a place deep within him, long buried.

  This once, he didn’t fight it.

  Instead, he questioned everything else in his life.

  He’d never liked his father. He’d feared and respected the man’s power yes, but nothing ever
close to a familial love. He’d always hated his father, but he’d hated the world more and saw no other way to live than to follow the most powerful man in existence and bring the world to heel. But had that been his own thought? He’d always had his father inside his head, always present, always watching, always commanding him. Did he hate the world, or was that an extension of his father’s seething ire at everything?

  It occurred to him that he’d been without his father’s presence for nearly a week now between the days in the dungeon of St. Antin and then here in the west. He’d hated the silence, but now…

  Yet it wasn’t silent now.

  Cassine lingered in his thoughts, in his soul.

  There was something about that light and purity that ate at him.

  He suddenly needed to move. He stood and strode away. If she were as connected to him as he to her, she’d know he needed time to think, to work out everything that had been turned upside down in his life in such a short period of time.

  He was quickly in the forest which covered most of the hillside. A light wind stirred the branches above him in a soft wash and murmur of leaves. Twigs snapped as he stepped on them, the debris of the forest floor crunching lightly with every step.

  He was tired, so incredibly tired. The past day had been exhausting and he just wanted to sleep, but his mind wouldn’t let him rest. Cassine had said he needed to figure out who he was, but suddenly that didn’t seem like a quick or easy process. He’d never had a chance, until now, to be anything other than what his father commanded him to be.

  Perhaps he’d start there.

  Is that the life he wanted? Did he want to go back? It had been his single desire for most of the past week, but now… he wasn’t sure. It would be easier that was certain. He wouldn’t have to think for himself, just do as commanded. He’d have some free thought, acting in the moment to carry out the Blacklord’s commands, but still his father would be there, close, watching. If he went back, he wouldn’t have to figure any of this out. He wouldn’t need to know who he was. His father would tell him. Everything would be clear… but would it be right?