Blistering heat struck Ashayna like a fist, causing her lungs to labor for a moment and sweat to bead up on her skin. They had left the tranquil grey world behind for one filled with intense late-afternoon sun and oppressive, muggy air. Blinking against bright light, she raised her hand to shade her eyes and realized she was in control of her body again.
“Don’t think of escape. We are far from anyone or anything you know.”
They stood at the edge of a cliff, overlooking a tree-shrouded river delta, surrounded by tall, craggy mountains. This vegetation was much thicker than she recalled from the one time she had seen a jungle. That time, she had been onboard a ship, some distance from shore. With each breath she could taste the loamy essence upon the moisture-laden air.
“Where are we?”
“It’s called a rainforest.” His tone was droll.
“That’s not…” She gritted her teeth and strove for calm. “Why bring me here?”
“If I could have avoided bringing you here, I would have. But, my dear Ash, that is the one downfall of the bond.” He sighed and stretched to loosen stiff joints and ruffle feathers as Sorntar would.
The move caused a spike of longing to pierce her heart. The strength of her emotions caught her off-guard.
Itharann gazed upon her with a surprised look. Ashayna realized, with a sick sensation in her middle, she’d just given Itharann a piece of information he could use as a weapon.
“So it’s not just lust.” His dark eyes shone in contrast against his pale skin. He gave her a smile of absolute merriment, stretching the tattoo along his cheekbones. In another familiar move, he cocked his head to one side, appraising her with a knowing look before his expression turned serious once again. “The force of your love, it surprised you, didn’t it? What an interesting situation we find ourselves in. If we had more time, I’d enjoy exploring our newfound relationship.”
“If I had my sword, I’d let you explore it up close.”
“Peace. I didn’t intend to bait you unduly. For what I must do next, I will need your cooperation, or at least, it will make what I must do easier. Will you agree to behave? Or do you prefer to be a prisoner? The choice is yours.”
“Tell me what you plan, and why you need me to behave. Then I’ll decide what to do.”
“We must make a flight, a few candlemarks at the most. However, I will be flying fast and covering a great deal of distance. We will be forced to leave our santhyrian friends behind and the distance will cause some problems.”
The strain would be too much, she realized. Itharann must be worried Sorntar would regain control. Ashayna was careful not to let too much excitement show when she said, “You won’t be able to control both them and me.” Itharann had plans upon plans. What she hoped for was probably not something he would overlook in any case, but she still held hope Sorntar was in there, fighting.
“An oversimplified view of our problem, but yes. Summer Flame will obey my orders, but the mare is as stubborn as you.”
“You have a problem.”
“One easily solved.”
“How so?”
“If Winter’s Frost is dead, she can’t give away our location.”
“I’ll cooperate.”
“You agree so quickly, no stalling, bluffing, or bargaining. You surprise me again.”
She only glowered at him.
Itharann walked over to Summer Flame and Winter’s Frost and summoned a small amount of power. After a moment, Ashayna realized he’d placed a weaving of restraint over the mare’s still form. Winter’s Frost neighed once in alarm before settling down to wait. Her head hung lower, and her eyes clouded with misery.
Ashayna clenched her jaw to keep silent. When Itharann was a handful of paces distant, he called his power. Much faster than when Sorntar shifted between his forms, fire engulfed Itharann and expanded outwards with a rush. The force of it blew her hair back from her face. Shielding her eyes with one arm, she peered out from under it to watch.
The fire dissipated as fast as it had come.
Purple-black feathers glistened in the jungle heat, with contrasting white barring on his primaries and tail-feathers. More white highlights accented smaller feathers around his dark eyes and marched up into his vast crest. He would have been beautiful had she not known what lay at his heart. Hatred rendered even the most breathtaking beauty revolting
“Come, we must leave.” He stepped closer, until he towered over her.
“I’ll not be intimidated, Larnkin. Besides, you must be growing tired of your constant power games. I said I’d go.”
He surprised her by taking a handful of hopping steps back until she was out from under his shadow. A giant beak lowered to chest level and she was looking at her image reflected in one of his large dark eyes. “The power games, as you call them, are as much your fault as mine. When you accept your fate and are willing to work with me, your life will become so much easier.”
Free to move under her own power, she stepped farther back from him while she continued to stretch and loosen stiff muscles.
While his eyes tracked her slightest movement, his massive talons dug up broad tracks of turf. A slight bob of his head denoted an eagerness to be away. Itharann lowered one wing.
Without a word, Ashayna grabbed fistfuls of feathers and pulled herself up. Settling her legs around the avian’s thick neck, she looked out over the cliff. A vast river cut its way through the valley below, its silt-brown water flowing smooth and slow. The wide, brown ribbon cut against the green background, creating a dramatic effect. At least from the air, she would have something to navigate by. For all the good it would do her. If it was as Itharann said, and she was far from everything she knew, there would be little use escaping into the jungle.
“Why am I even having these thoughts? You know every thought as it goes through my head.”
“Ash, you’re a survivor and think of escape.” His deep, rasping voice was similar to how Sorntar had sounded in bird form. “A trait I value in a bondmate. Though how you always overlook the most obvious obstacle is a mystery to me. You’ve never been parted from Sorntar for any great length of time since you bonded with him. I don’t think you totally understand just how horrible separation can be for the hosts. May you be blessed never to find out.”
Itharann took to the air in a stomach-lurching leap. The ground dropped quickly away below them, until the forest looked like a green carpet below and the wide, brown river was no more than a thin line.
***
Flying, while cooler than walking, was still an uncomfortable way to travel in this sweltering-hot land. The air up higher was less humid, lighter, and the insects she imagined she could hear buzzing below were absent as well. But those were the only consolations. Sun scorched her skin and made her lightheaded with thirst. A headache was building at an alarming pace, almost as fast as the dark, towering storm clouds to the northeast.
“Do you plan to fly into a storm? I’d rather not.”
“We are almost to our destination, though the storm’s outer edge will reach us before then. I’ll protect you.”
She leveled another glare at the back of his feathered head and was tempted to yank out his crest in frustration. “Still not comfortable with flying…would prefer not to do it in a storm!”
“A distraction it is then. Look along the slope of the valley to the left of where the waterfall crashes down into empty air before hitting the next outcropping. Do you see the spot I mean?”
Curious, and with nothing better to do, Ashayna looked along the line of slope he described. Jutting out from a living carpet of green were the remains of some stone work. It looked to be a wall. Following the bit of old architecture, she found another crumbling building and more fragments of walls. Itharann flew up and over another towering ridge of mountains. The bit of stonework she’d been following vanished under forest, but other stone structures stuck out of the greenery here and there, like the scattered bones of a skeleton. The tallest buildings w
ere accented with crumbling towers.
It was the remains of an ancient city, long abandoned and reclaimed by nature millennia ago.
“Do you remember it?”
“Home,” Ashayna whispered. For long, sanity-threatening moments, images of what it had looked like then, vivid and alive, flooded her mind as her Larnkin stirred to life briefly. It was larger and more glorious than Grey Spires, a vast place, dedicated to study and learning.
“Perhaps one day, should we survive, I’ll come back here to reclaim what was lost. The Elementals have forgotten this place, thinking it cursed. Forgotten, it has lain dormant with all its secrets.”
The giant phoenix circled lower over the city one final time in silence, trapped in his ancient memories. His wing-beats increased, regaining altitude before he continued farther south, chased by the thunderstorm.
“I need to know where we’re going. Please.”
Itharann arched his head to look back at her while they flew. His look was serious, but not as hostile.
“We go to the place of our deaths.”
His words left a rock in her stomach, while kicking her pulse into a faster pace. Taking a better grip on his feathers, she leaned forward and to the side to meet one of his large eyes. The clouds and her reflection looked back. “You mean we’re about to visit the place where we died last time, don’t you?”
“There’s something I must do there. It’s better seen than told.” His mental tone was emotionless again. He locked his gaze on the horizon and ignored her further attempts at communication.
Ashayna swallowed her frustration and looked beyond his crest to see what he was looking at.
One mountain, larger than all its siblings, stretched up into the clouds, in a seemingly unending wall of stone. Itharann found a thermal and followed the swiftly rising slope, higher and higher until Ashayna’s lungs began to labor and she grew lightheaded and heavy-limbed.
Air cooled layer by layer, until the cold was as uncomfortable as the oppressive heat had been. Mist from clouds dewed upon her exposed skin. Behind them the storm gave chase, stretching dark arms of cloud out before it. Thunder boomed louder and flashes of light raced through the energy-laden air.
Ashayna didn’t feel comfortable, even with Itharann’s assurances he would protect her from the storm. Something more than the storm was gnawing at her confidence. The air, the essence of this place felt wrong.
Wrong like the Dead King’s tomb, wrong like the Wild Path and the Oracle’s Tower…wrong like the wardlen. She could not name it. Visiting the place of their death could certainly be enough to cause her to be uneasy.
He broke above the level of the clouds. The seemingly endless wall of rock did have an end. The cone of an extinct volcano rose above her head. The crater’s center was filled with a clear, blue lake, so large it could be a freshwater sea. The surface was still, glass-smooth. The storm winds had yet to touch it. Itharann flew lower, until his shadow vanished under him. The sharp scent of magic greeted her nose.
The water looked fresh and was the proper color, but Ashayna certainly wouldn’t drink from it unless forced. Underlying the scent of magic was the same tainted scent she had perceived on both Itharann and the wardlen. Fear crawled up her spine. She wished Itharann would put some distance between them and whatever the lake was.
She looked around the steep shore of the unorthodox lake. Greenery had gained a foothold in shallow fissures, though she saw no grottos or other places where one might hide something of value. Yet there had to be something she wasn’t seeing for Itharann to return. He wouldn’t waste time rousing ancient memories for no purpose.
She was about to ask what he had come for when he increased his wing-beats and spiraled upward. Overhead, the storm-darkened skies opened up and poured water down upon them. Ashayna, protected by a shield Itharann had erected, remained safe and dry.
Splitting her attention between the dome of rainwater cascading around his shield and the churning water below, she called to Itharann using their mental link. “What are you doing?”
“Gathering strength. Hold on.”
Itharann tucked his wings and dove. Ashayna screamed and grabbed fistfuls of his feathers. The walls of the volcano passed in a blur, and the water rushed up at them with a sickening speed.
“We’re going to die!”
“Not just yet.”
They hit the water a moment later, and yet didn’t get wet. Peering out first one eye and then the other, she looked around to see Itharann’s shield held back the lake’s great volume of water as they sank deeper. Sank was incorrect, she realized. They sped downward at an unnatural rate. It grew darker, and as it did, the shield surrounding them began to glow, creating a subtle illumination, enough to see vague outlines in the water around them. The outlines clarified themselves into giant rock formations, too intricate and artistic to be natural.
The light cast by Itharann’s shield only illuminated one small bit of each structure, but it was enough.
They were sculptures. Images of different Elemental races.
“Ah, I see he has kept busy. One must do something to alleviate boredom, I suppose.”
“He?” She asked the question with growing horror.
“Dakdamon’s prison must be weakening after all these millenniums. This is his doing, as is the water. Water and time go hand in hand and both are his to command. His power has found a small breach in his prison and he calls his element to him. I don’t doubt the storm is his.”
“You still serve Dakdamon? What of all your talk of serving the balance, about the Twelve and protecting those who were loyal to you? Lies?” All along she knew he was dark, tainted by what Dakdamon had done to him, but she also thought he was free of his old master with an agenda of his own.
She was a fool, a thrice-cursed fool who deserved whatever happened. But her greatest failing would cost the world much suffering. She couldn’t fight what the dark monster would do. She would forget herself. Lose the essence of who and what she was until she became Dakdamon’s slave. Worse, she’d failed Sorntar. No one would help him be free of Itharann. Her throat tightened with so many regrets.
“How touching. However, I won’t let Sorntar be the plaything of my old master. I don’t plan on turning you over to him either.”
“I’ve had enough of your lies. We’re here at the demon’s prison. That tells me all I need to know.”
“We’re here because I must shed the last of Dakdamon’s taint. You’re the Destroyer. On the most basic level, your strength is to unmake all forms of magic. You must cast out every last bit of him within me. Or we’ll never be free.”
Ashayna didn’t feel any relief at Itharann’s words. He couldn’t be trusted, not when his old master was near. “I still don’t believe you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
As they descended, Itharann’s shield intensified until the pale luminance resembled moonlight. A strange glittering accented the darkness. Ashayna squinted until the oddity came into focus. There were crystals imbedded in the statues.
“They are reminders of the one he lost long ago, I would guess.” A bird could not shrug, but his feathers fluffed up then flattened again in a manner she was coming to translate as the same. “I speak of Lasharra, Lady of Fire, creator of the stars. Dakdamon’s consort.”
Itharann leveled out his strange flight until he skimmed the lake’s bottom. Ahead, a maw of a cavern loomed. Before he reached his destination, a surge of power flared along Ashayna’s senses. A defensive weaving snapped into place over the entrance.
“Now what? That weaving looks decidedly unfriendly.”
Itharann didn’t bother with a reply. He drew closer to the shield. Nothing happened.
Perhaps it was designed to keep people out, not to attack the unwary. Itharann released his mental hold on her and focused all his concentration on the complex spell of the shield. Power increased another level, and then dissipated in the next heartbeat.
“Ah.” Itharann
’s uninformative response told her nothing. But surprisingly, he allowed her to peek into his thoughts.
Ignoring his arrogance, she sifted through his thoughts until she found something of use, or he let her find it. The shield was keyed to allow the Twelve within. Itharann was confident it would allow him through. Ashayna hoped he was wrong. At the moment, she would have been happy to see the shield relieve him of his overconfidence.
Small tendrils of power coalesced along his crest and wings. They flowed over her arms where she held tight to the feathers of his neck. Somehow, she knew the magic wasn’t interested in her. After a moment, it leapt from Itharann, crossing the watery distance to collide with the shield.
A flash of light nearly blinded Ashayna. The fiery power of the shield expanded to encompass them. The world tilted and she was jerked forward. Itharann’s indignant screech echoed in her ears. The world shuddered again, and Ashayna rolled off Itharann’s back and smacked into the ground. She lay there a moment, just breathing. Damp began seeping into her clothes.
“That weaving is woefully misinformed if it thinks you’re an ally,” she said, still lying on her back. Drops of water splashed her face. They were in a dark tunnel; water still dripped into a few shallow pools spaced randomly along the floor. Apparently the tunnel had, until recently, been part of the lake, its floor still slippery with algae and other marine plants.
“We need to move.” Itharann hooked her belt with his beak and lifted her with stomach-lurching speed, then deposited her roughly on her feet.
“I’m not baggage, you witless, controlling, manipulative, misbegotten freak! Touch me again and I’ll—”
“Do nothing.” His comment slid into her statement smooth as a dagger. “If you care for your friend, Winter’s Frost.”
She snapped her teeth together and whirled away. In her path, a spiral-shelled snail the size of her palm sat like a lump of rock. Ashayna curled her lip and nudged it off to the side.
In Deception's Shadow Box Set: Book 1-3 Page 25
