I remembered when Arwan had protected us with her Mist barrier. She said that it wasn’t safe to use it. Was this shield the same energy force that protected the one up north and the same one that Arwan had used that day…the one that now locked the traitors from the Keep in their little prison? Were the other cistea’a now unprotected?
I couldn’t release the barrier until the Empire returned with reinforcements. Three days. What had become of the other cistea’a? What had become of the other Slices? Six Slices. Twelve cistea’a. Three obtained. One just on the other side of Gryshelm’s Edge, soon to be obtained. The remaining eight cistea’a were defenseless. Hopefully they, like these four, did not need defending. Or maybe there were other Slices who came to believe like Nazarie did and didn’t have a book to obfuscate but turned their attention to obliterating the cistea’a. Too many what ifs. There were actions to be taken now.
I peeled apart this Edge just enough for me to slip through so as not to cause Azabin to notice. The blue ball that matched the one I had found in the northern part of this Slice was exposed to the frozen elements. I placed it in my bag with the other three.
Surely, all the Southern cistea’a were on the other sides of a few Edges. I could collect them all right now and save myself the trouble of coming to this pole again. As soon as I stepped toward the eastern edge of the next Slice, I realized my mistake. This Slice was different. More powerful. It was not as weak as my Slice. I should have recognized the additional chaos of vibrations the edge of this Slice spewed forth, but I wasn’t thinking.
Azabin’s red eyes made contact. I was falling into them. My feet, planted on the ground, no longer felt secure. A force stronger than gravity pulled me toward this Edge. I was falling perpendicular to the ground, into the Edge. I knew this Edge was too strong for me to tumble through. I would bounce off and leave a charred corpse like the child I’d heard about.
The cistea’a in my bag tried to escape from the Edge, pulling my bag like a flag in a maelstrom. Thankfully, the bag was slung over my shoulder and not around my neck or I’d have been strangled. It held me like a fraying rope. With great effort, I rotated my back to the Edge, grabbed the bag with both my hands, and hugged it to my body. The cistea’a inside my bag somehow became a solid step. I scrambled upon them and way from the Edge.
I collapsed onto the ground, which felt like a floor again. Night was falling, and the freezing temperatures had dropped further. I couldn’t stay in this Slice or I would freeze to death.
That had been a very, very bad idea.
The Edge back to my world was no longer weak. Azabin now knew I was here. But I did have enough control over the Mist to open a small hole back to my side and stumbled back to the campsite, back to Bahlym and Adara.
Thankfully, the only pastime I had for the next three days was to relax, recuperate, and think about all the cute things I’d do with Sara Heather.
Chapter 39
The very tedium that I had looked forward to quickly turned agonizing. By the third morning, my boredom was nearly unbearable. I’d not seen any living creature besides Adara and Bahlym since the Kadir and his men had set forth. I decided to take a walk across the tundra. An ocean of frozen white land sprawled beyond the horizon in one direction and to The Edge, Gryshelm’s Edge, in the other. I still had a hard time thinking of Gryshelm’s Edge as one of many. I knew it to be true. But, a lifetime of beliefs were stubborn.
I saw four specks flying in the distance and assumed that they were birds, but as they got closer, I realized they were people: Nazarie, Kael, Altis, and Desha. How by all the stars and planets had they escaped?
The Fortifieds they carried with them slurped in an astronomical amount of Mist, which explained their levitation in this Mist-deprived Slice, but not their escape. Had the shield become weaker when I tried preemptively to cross new Edges? Guardians! Were the others safe?
As the four figures drew closer, I forced myself to stop worrying about those back in Gryshelm and tried to formulate some sort of plan. I couldn’t outrun them. Bahlym and Adara were too far away to hear my cries and the Empirites wouldn’t be ready for several more hours. I was utterly alone.
“Hailey, none of us wants to hurt you,” Nazarie said as they drifted to the ground. The Fortified in her hand was the same one that I’d seen in her cabinet the day I had snooped. The same one that had killed my mother and my sister.
Kael smirked, “Well, don’t speak for all of us.” The Mist bent as he pulled it inward with his own Fortified, which matched Nazarie’s.
Desha stepped between Kael and me, her braid-less hair cascaded down her back in messy spirals. “Hailey, please, don’t you see? We are risking sacrificing a universe for the sake of one planet.”
“But it’s our planet,” I declared, backing away slightly as the four of them moved closer to me.
“It’s like a forest fire,” Nazarie insisted. “New life will grow. It just won’t be ours.”
I stood my ground, willing my feet to stay in place, despite how badly I wanted to turn and run. They’d strike me down before I got more than a yard away. “You once told me that injustice for one man is worth turning over everything to set it right,” I told Nazarie. “This Power is from the gods. It’s not our fault. We shouldn’t have to pay for it with our lives.” My hand floated over my belly. “I want my daughter to grow up. I have to do this.”
Nazarie shook her head sadly. “Hailey, please. If you come with us peacefully, we won’t hurt you. If you will not…” she threw her hands up in desperation, unwilling to complete the sentence.
Altis didn’t make eye contact with me. Instead, he looked over my shoulder. His eyes were red-rimmed—at least he looked as miserable as I felt. “You are too outnumbered for this.” His voice cracked as he spoke.
I clenched my fists, wishing that I’d not left my daggers back at the campsite. “Kael won’t let me be taken alive.”
Kael shrugged in acknowledgment. He wore the same expression on his face that he had the day he’d commanded Nazarie to kill me when I was twelve. Searching Nazarie’s, Desha’s, and Altis’s faces, I knew they were all equally prepared to keep Azabin trapped. My death provided the most certain solution. Without me, Azabin would never be able to escape.
Azabin throbbed. He promised to weave tapestries more intricate than the stale Mist from my daggers could ever be capable of forming. I called to it, praying I could control Azabin. Right now, we both had the same desire: to keep me alive.
The Mist coiled into ropes of purple power and stained the air around me blood red. I formed a thread of the Mist into a tangible sword and slashed it through the air a few times to get a feeling for its heft. I didn’t know I could do that.
Nazarie, tears in her eyes, made a sign against evil.
“Hailey, please, don’t make us do this,” Altis pleaded as his own Mist formed around him, bright and strong.
“I’m not making you do anything,” I told him as the four of them drew their swords of solid, sharp metal. I grasped the hilt of the Mist sword, praying it would withstand being struck.
Kael attacked first. With a cry of rage, he slashed into my Mist sword. An unnaturally high-pitched sound ripped across the tundra. The rhythmic music of my blade deflecting theirs kept beat to our movements. Symphonic staccato bursts filled the air. Before this moment, I never understood why people referred to swordplay as dancing. I spun, blocking each thrust. Darting forward to attack. Gliding backward to avoid the sharp edges that sailed through the air.
Altis slashed backhanded, nearly slipping past my defenses. I over-twisted to parry and toppled to the ground. A student’s mistake. I quickly rolled to my feet. In terror, I over-reached, drawing all of Azabin that I could grasp.
I felt the power of the Fortifieds they had with them. I pulled the Mist from their Fortifieds. I shouldn’t have been able to do this. Only the person holding a Fortified should be able to access the Mist contained within. I gulped the energy of their Fortifieds.
Azabin gasped in pleasure and surprise.
I felt the tantalizing beat of my attackers’’ mortality, their delectable force. I was ravenous for it. With a smile I realized that I could devour their beings and kill them all like I’d destroyed that hovercraft from the Empire. I condensed the Mist around them, smothering their ability to move. Their futile struggles felt like kittens drowning in a bag.
My deep throaty laugh sounded foreign to my own ears. I needed to savor every delightful second. I licked my lips, anticipating the glorious sensations that awaited me. I loosened my grip on everyone except Kael. I squeezed until Kael’s eyes bugged out. His ragged gasps were the most beautiful sounds I’d heard in centuries. The tears trickling down his face purified me, washing away any shred of useless compassion. I twisted his neck slowly. A nearly orgasmic release flooded my entire being the moment he died.
Guardians’ balls.
I knew myself again. I wrestled for control of my body, taking advantage of Azabin’s distraction as it reveled in Kael’s death.
I pulled the Mist shield off the Keep in Gryshelm and threw it around my attackers. Desha angrily beat her sword against the shield, cursing me. She couldn’t know that I wasn’t trying to keep her in, but to keep Azabin out. I would not kill one of them. Not like this.
I pushed Azabin away from me, back to his home in The Edges. Howling in fury, he grasped for one more glorious murder.
Azabin ripped my unborn child from my womb. Azabin severed Sara Heather’s connection to the Mist, and it felt like he’d ripped off a limb from my body. He basked in the warm glow of her death, and I felt it; his feelings flowed through me. His bliss comingled with my horror.
Agony consumed my body. Cramps tore through my abdomen and lower back. I collapsed onto the ground, the cold earth pressed against my face.
“Hailey! Don’t you see? You can’t control Azabin. You will become him,” Nazarie pounded on the shield. “Please! Stop before you to destroy the entire universe.”
Pain surged. Azabin paced inside The Edges like a caged animal. I felt him smile, gloating over Kael’s death and the death of my unborn daughter. Another Sara had died because of this Prophecy. After a while—I don’t know how long—I realized that Bahlym and Adara were standing next to the shield. “Hailey?” Adara shrieked. “You’ve been stabbed!”
I lay in an ocean of blood. So much blood. How was there that much blood and yet I still lived? “No. Took… too much…. Azabin,” I said between spasms of pain. “Killed my baby!”
Concern etched across Bahlym’s face. “Guardians! Are you okay?”
I vomited.
“Is your bastard dying?” Altis asked Bahlym cruelly.
“It’s not mine,” Bahlym responded. “It’s yours.”
Altis’s face went pale.
I nodded to him. I guess that he should know.
Adara bent down and brushed my hair from my face, trying to comfort me. “At least you were able to let the Empire through.”
“Gryshelm’s Edge completely disappeared for a few moments and the Empire’s fleet is here,” Bahlym clarified, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything.
“Let’s get her on the hovercraft,” Adara ordered. “Surely they have a healer.” She turned back to look at the Weavers trapped by the barrier. “Are we going to leave them there? They’ll freeze in this weather.”
I shook my head no. Talking took too much effort. I hazarded a glance at Altis. He knelt on the ground, his hands pressed against the barrier as if he was trying to break free to hold me.
I hoped the stars would forever abandon him.
Bahlym scooped me up and ran for the hovercraft, screaming for a healer. As soon as we boarded, the medic came running. “Where was she stabbed?” he asked.
“No, there is something wrong with the baby,” Adara replied.
The medic looked terrified. “I’m not that kind of healer.”
“You’re all we have,” Bahlym shouted. “We’ve got less than two days until Gryshelm’s Edge is upon the city, and she’s in no shape to walk. She certainly can’t fight.”
They kept talking, but their words sounded miles away. Tiny and insignificant.
They took me to a bed. They mumbled to themselves, concerned that they couldn’t feel the baby’s grip on the Mist. I tried to explain to them what Azabin had done, but I couldn’t form the words. I couldn’t vocalize anything coherent. I clenched my teeth to try to keep from sobbing. It didn’t work. The medic gave me something for the “physical discomfort.” Now that was an understatement. I prayed, begged, pleaded to whatever deity was in earshot that I’d wake up in anywhere but here. But it was daylight and the sun shrouded us from the stars. No god could hear my prayers. The Guardians, as always, remained stoically detached.
My body purged itself of the carcass, the last true link between me and Altis. I lay there for several hours, bawling, weeping… only partially from the pain. I couldn’t stand. A few times, I managed to crawl to the bathroom. I’d lost the baby, and a piece of Azabin remained in me like a splinter wedged too deeply to remove. Baby out. Azabin in. I’d even take Kael’s dungeon over this star-forsaken emptiness.
I wanted the ecstasy I felt—Azabin felt—from murdering Kael to appall me, but I couldn’t feel anything right now besides numb. Nazarie had begged me to stop before I destroyed the entire universe, but my whole universe was destroyed. The baby was gone. Altis was gone. Nazarie was gone. Maybe the Guardians were wrong and the gods were right to abandon us. Azabin would die here along with everyone I loved. Nazarie, Altis, and Meena had turned away from me. Who did I have left worth saving?
The physical pain had subsided, and I was tired of thinking, so I joined Adara, Bahlym, and the crew in the cockpit. “There’s been something wrong with our communicators,” Adara told me as I entered, thankfully not asking me about the baby or how I felt. “We’re getting no news. You don’t think they are all dead, do you?”
I didn’t answer. There were only a few dozen non-treasonous Weavers between the Mitanni and Gryshelm left to guard the city. They would have been no significant defense against the hundreds of Weavers who were freed the moment I released the shield around the Keep. Remembering the shield, I released Desha, Nazarie, and Altis. I put it back around the cistea’a on the other Slices.
Then again, maybe we were all dead already, but just hadn’t admitted it yet.
Slowly the walls of Gryshelm City became visible, miles before they would have had we been on the ground. This vantage was truly… odd. Last time, it had been dark, so we couldn’t see the city as we approached. I had not been able to see it emerge from behind the horizon like a spirit rising from the grave. But today, soaring through the daylight in Kadir’s flagship war craft, I could.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I brought saving reinforcements or a conquering army.
Chapter 40
A strangely normal feeling permeated the city. I fully expected to come back to a civil war; to see bodies crumpled in the streets. Nazarie and the others had escaped somehow. Why had they not carved a trail of carnage in their wake? Why had they not murdered the loyal Weavers like I had murdered Kael and Azabin had murdered Sara Heather.
Instead of sobbing amidst smoldering carnage, children scampered. Outside the castle’s inner walls, vendors sold their wares. Noblewomen rode by in their carriages, handkerchiefs waving to would-be-suitors. Where was the massacre, the terror tinged with the sadness of deaths of loved ones? Azabin’s splinter inside of me cringed with disappointment.
Without preamble, we were ushered to a room where Prince Jaysen and a few trusted members of Parliament debated upon the next course of action. They filled us in on the events of the past few days.
“So you can remove Gryshelm’s Edge?” Jaysen asked.
“Not in the way you want me to,” I said.
“It was gone. How could we not want that?”
“It wasn’t cleansed. Azabin used the Edges to possess me and that is no
t what we want. It would be worse than the Edges. The cistea’a will allow me to safely remove the Edge. But what happened with the Weavers?”
“When the shield was removed, the Mist Weavers and the Mitanni left. They defended themselves and there was a small death toll, but they were more concerned with leaving quickly rather than fighting. They took to the skies and flew away,” Rcanian told us. “They left the children and weaker Weavers.”
“But how did Nazarie, Kael, Desha, and Altis escape?” Adara asked. “They attacked Hailey at the pole before the shields were removed.”
“We were unaware that the barrier had been penetrated by anyone, prior to it disappearing.” Jaysen said. “There were few Weavers loyal to us who remained inside the Keep, and, according to them, The Lead Initiate, The Lead Scholar and two others used some very powerful Fortifieds to breach the shields.”
Well, I’d consumed the Mist from those Fortifieds and even after being used to breech the shields, they had quite a bit of power. Of course they were little better than sticks now. “Do you know if they took the pages of the book with them?” I asked sadly.
Rcanian shrugged. “They could be anywhere.”
“But,” Jaysen held up his finger, “there is someone who knows what the pages contain. He is waiting for the Promise. I will summon him.” Jaysen clapped at a guard. The man bowed and disappeared out the door.
My interest was piqued. “I thought no one knew.”
“Some oral tradition from his home village,” Rcanian told us, waving his hand in dismissal.
“Would have saved me a lot of trouble if he’d have told me to begin with,” I said angrily.
“Apparently, he didn’t remember until ten weeks ago,” Jaysen said. “He had suspicions. He was that source I told you about that night. Turns out he was correct. Nazarie and Altis both ended up being traitors, but you were true to the crown.”
Prophecy's Promise (Prophecy of the Edges Book 1) Page 27
