No no no!
Blood trickled from Torin’s mouth and down his chin. Kala ran for him, her heart hammering. No. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t. He wouldn’t do that to her. He wouldn’t leave her like—
Someone grabbed a hank of her hair and yanked her off her feet. “I’m going to fuck you on the Sol’s bleeding corpse, False Fire,” Zroya snarled, slamming his foot into her stomach as she hit the ground. “And then I’m going to break your nose and fuck your face just for some fun.”
He slammed his foot into her side again and Kala bent into the blow, grabbing his calf, glaring up into his shocked face. She grinned, the action awakening something dark and scalding within her soul. “Going to be hard to do that after I rip your pathetic dick from your body, Zroya.”
She threw his leg away from her, using his weight as a counter-pivot to spin herself to her belly. She was on her feet before Zroya could recover his balance. Hot hate consumed her. Filled her. She stared at him, the fire in her blood alive. The agony in her heart was absolute. Absolute.
Oh, God, Torin.
“And the False Fire shall be destroyed by the One Who Burns and the One Who Burns shall perish to the False Fire.” Uloch’s whisper slithered into Kala’s ear but she didn’t care. There was death to be wrought. Life to be butchered.
She gazed at Zroya with empty elation and took a step toward him at the exact moment the rapturous singing started again.
Torin Torin Torin here here here Torin Torin Torin.
A warm light rolled over her. Through her. Her stomach clenched and her sex throbbed. Numb and burning with living fire, she turned to the altar, to the light. To Torin’s still body.
White-gold radiance flooded the temple, blinding her. Illuminating everything in stark clarity. She saw the blood trickle past Torin’s lips. Saw it drip from his chin, a perfect crimson bead. Saw it fall to the blood-stained altar beneath him. Saw it seep into the ancient stone. New blood to old.
And then she saw the Sword.
It appeared at Torin’s limp fingers, rising hilt first from the white-gold light. She stared at it, her throat tight, her heart hammering. It was beautiful. Terrifying. It radiated infinite power and humble force. It called her. It petrified her. She stared at it, watching it rise from the light, every molecule of her body burning.
Here here here here.
It continued to rise from the light, untouched by any hand, its golden, burning length skimming past Torin’s knuckles, his wrist, in a gentle caress Kala felt on her own flesh.
Here here here here.
“Here,” Uloch screeched behind her. “It is here. The Immortals’ blade. The Sun Sword. It is here.”
“At last,” Zroya hissed.
“Take it, Kala Rei,” Uloch yelled, his voice high and commanding. “Take it in your hand and release it of its prison.”
“What?” Zroya’s stunned shout slammed into Kala. “I am the One Who Burns, not her!” He stared at Uloch, furious disbelief twisting his handsome face. “I am the One who will control all the worlds. You said it was me. Me. You said I was the One Who—”
“Take the sword, Kala Rei,” Uloch ordered over Zroya’s roars, his exultant stare fixed on her. “You are the One Who Burns. The Oracle saw you. My brother saw you. But only I saw a millennium ago what you really are, what you really can be. You are the One Who Burns and all the worlds will tremble at your feet.” He stepped closer to her, spittle glistening on his lips, the veins in his neck and temples bulging. “Take the sword and destroy the male who raped you. Take the sword and destroy the man for all the women he has violated and butchered. Take the sword and destroy him for all the men who have violated you. Free it from its prison and pare him in two.” His voice rose higher, higher, his white eyes as bright as the golden heat filling the temple. “Show him the wrath of the Sun Sword’s truth. Show him the power of the One Who Burns. Offer his death as a sacrifice to the Sword and I will show you how to use that power to make all the worlds burn. All the worlds suffer for your pain.”
Kala stared at him, her blood on fire, the singing in her head frenzied. Myriad memories smashed through her—a lifetime of hideous, agonizing memories Uloch had released from the depths of her tormented soul. The pain of each one tore through her, scorching. Scalding.
Here here here here.
She ground her teeth, fighting the nightmare of those memories. “I never wanted power,” she growled, burning alive from the inside out. “I only wanted Torin.”
Uloch’s eyes flashed silver rage. “Take the Sword.”
“No!” Zroya screeched again. He leapt for her, hate and fury and insane hunger in his eyes. “It is mine! Mine! You will not—”
He froze. As if every muscle suddenly turned to ice.
Uloch stepped closer to Kala again, destroying the distance between them. “Kill him,” he ordered in a harsh snarl, his face twisted with contempt. “For every male that attacked you in your life, for every man who chained you, beat you. For every man who brutalized your flesh with his lust. Take the sword and cleave him in two.”
Images blasted at Kala, potent, fresh memories ripe with smoldering rage. She saw Zroya loom over her, smirking down at her as he pinned her to the floor. Felt his hands rip at her flesh, her breasts, her thighs. Tasted her own blood weep into her mouth from her lips split by his fists, punctured by his teeth. Tasted his spit on her tongue from his savage kisses. She lived his assault all over again in the space of a heartbeat.
She saw him doing the very same to woman after woman, girl after girl, child after child. All in the pursuit of the One Who Burns and the Sun Sword.
The Sun Sword will bring brutal death…
In the hands of the False Fire.
She sucked in an icy breath, another, another. Her palms itched and her sex throbbed. A blistering cold, hungry heat licked at her core. Her soul. She wanted to take the sword. She wanted to take it and butcher Zroya where he stood. She wanted to plunge its burning length into his black, malicious heart and watch his blood flow from his body. She was meant to do this. She was created to do this.
…bring brutal death…
To bring brutal death to the man who had violated her. To the man who had taken from her what was not his to take. His brutal death was just the beginning. A blood sacrifice. A righteous punishment. Zroya’s brutal death would begin it all. The beginning of the end for the worlds of man. And her empty fury would rage forever.
No.
A calm voice whispered through her head.
Kala’s breath caught. The heat in her soul flickered as if a gentle breeze blew across its raging flames.
Her eyebrows pulled into a puzzled frown. Torin?
“Kill him!” Uloch’s cry tore the chilly air. “And open yourself to the unending power of the Immortals’ weapon.”
“Remember the Sun Sword’s truth,” the calm voice continued. Torin’s voice. From a training session a lifetime ago.
“In the hands of the One Who Burns the Sun Sword will bring new life to the hearts of man. In the hands of the False Fire the Sun Sword will bring brutal death.”
An incredulous disbelief stole over Kala. She froze, every fibre in her body prickling with hesitant realization.
Was she both?
No, that couldn’t be. She was insane. She was—
The Youngest’s seed will be perverted and the perversion will hold the hearts of man in empty fury.
The single line from the Sol Prophecy slipped through her head and she gasped.
Empty fury.
Her empty fury.
God, was she both? The savior and the destroyer? The seed and the perversion? The One Who Burns and the False Fire?
The prickling sensation intensified and she sucked in a sharp breath. If she took the sword now, who would draw Zroya’s blood?
God, had Torin known all along?
Uloch stared at her, his eyes blazing a silver inferno of malevolent fury. “Kill him, Kala Rei, and I will lead you to glory and do
minion over all.”
She shook her head, her heart racing. “No.”
“Kill him.”
“No.”
“Kill him!”
“No.”
Icy contempt warped Uloch’s triumphant expression to a twisted sneer. “Very well then,” he snarled. “I shall do it for you.”
He curled his right hand around the dead rabbit’s rotting head, tightened his grip on its hind legs with his left and ripped the carcass apart.
“Master?” Confusion and terror turned Zroya’s squeal to a strangled squeak. “What is—” His eyes rolled, his mouth stretched wide and—with a sickening, wet glurk—his body tore in two.
Blood sprayed over Uloch. He laughed, the viscous liquid spattering his face in grotesque patterns, his white eyes blazing brighter. “Now, Kala Rei!” His jubilant cry reverberated throughout the temple, throughout Kala’s stomach. “Take the sword.”
“The Sun Sword will bring new life to the hearts of man in the hands of the One Who Burns…” The words of the prophecy whispered in her head, her soul.
Golden heat reached out for her.
“The Sun Sword will bring brutal death to the hearts of man in the hands of the False Fire.”
“The One Who Burns restores life where there is death. Brings death where there is life.”
Her pulse quickened.
“Pierce the undead heart with the burning heart…”
Her breath grew shallow.
“Pierce the undead heart with the burning heart…”
“Take the sword, Kala Rei. Take it! Take it!”
Take the sword, Kala.
The last command whispered through Kala’s mind. Soft. Calm. Trusting. Her own voice. No one else’s.
Uloch stepped closer, impatient fury devouring his blood-streaked face. “Take the sword, Kala Rei and fulfill my vision!”
Kala narrowed her eyes in a disgusted glare. “Go to hell, old man. And take a bath while you’re there.” She curled her lip and wrinkled her nose. “You stink.”
She spun to the altar, her blood roaring in her ears, her heart thumping in her throat. Just as the Sun Sword burst into golden fire.
The white light radiating from its blade grew blindingly hot, bathing Torin’s lifeless body in a pure glow of heat, concealing him, shrouding him. She extended her arm, her blood molten lava, her heart a steady tattoo, and curled her fingers around the hilt of the sword.
Here here here now now now.
Now.
She ignited. Fire. White-hot. Incinerating.
Completing.
Pierce the undead heart with the burning heart…
Calm descended over her. Her heartbeat slowed. Her breath grew steady. She knew what she was doing. As well as she knew Torin loved her. For what she was—an abused girl he’d found on a dying planet with anger and hate in her soul. For what she had become—the One Who Burns.
The One Who Burns restores life where there is death.
The One Who Burns brings death where there is life.
She raised the Sun Sword above her shoulder with graceful strength, swung its perfect weight in a smooth arc above her head, leveled her unwavering stare on her target—“No!” Uloch screamed—and plunged the burning blade into Torin’s lifeless chest.
Done.
The word sounded in Kala’s head, a pure crystal voice of infinite time and power, and the Sun Sword detonated into white energy, white life, white heat and incinerated everything.
Everything.
***
Torin opened his eyes. There was no pain, no heat, just light. White light. He drew in a slow breath, letting it pour into his being.
A serene calm came with its cool caress, flowing through him, seeking out the centre of his existence. He frowned, studying the ubiquitous whiteness. Where was he?
Pushing himself to his feet, he cocked his head to the side. Why was he here?
“To hear and to learn.”
Torin turned at the familiar voice behind him, narrowing his eyes. The Old Seer stood in the light, vivid in clarity and wearing a small smile, his skin as leathered and seamed as it ever had been, his eyes as sightless and unerringly piercing as they had always been. “I did warn you she would be your undoing, Torin Kerridon.”
“She?” He gave the Old Seer a reproachful look, ignoring the fact he was talking to a man long since dead. A man he himself had set torch to while laid out on a pyre in the P’helios willows. “I do think you failed to mention the gender of the One Who Burns in your guidance, Seer.”
“Did I?” The ancient man’s smile turned enigmatic. “Would it have made a difference?”
Torin ground his teeth. “Yes,” he answered with flat conviction. “It would have.”
The Old Seer studied him with those penetrating, sightless eyes and said nothing.
A heavy pressure wrapped around Torin’s chest and he curled his fingers into fists. He had no idea where he was—Hell? The next life?—but he didn’t care. He glared at his old guide. “You knew Uloch would take her.”
The Old Seer’s expression remained composed. “Yes.”
“You knew she would be tortured by your brother.”
“Yes.”
Torin closed his eyes, cold rage cutting his calm. He’d never been angry with his Sol guide before. Exasperated, yes, but never angry. His rage was unnerving and powerful. He swallowed a thick lump in his throat and ground out the statement weighing most heavily on his chest. “You knew I would fall in love with her.”
“Yes.”
Opening his eyes, he let the old man see his rage. “You knew and yet you chose not to tell me.”
The Old Seer raised his eyebrows, as if surprised by Torin’s accusation. “I told you the One Who Burns would be your undoing.”
“My undoing?” Torin bit back a furious curse. “I don’t give a flying fuck about my undoing. Do you know what Kala has suffered since I found her? If I’d known, I—”
He stopped, the lump in his throat growing thicker. If he’d know he’d what? Never gone to Earth in the first place? Never taken Kala from the hellhole of her life there? Never held her in his arms and let her have his heart? He shook his head and swallowed at the lump once more. He must be dead. Where else but the lowest pit of the next life would he be tormented so?
“You are not in the next phase of your existence, Torin Kerridon.”
The Old Seer’s calm voice made him tighten his fists even as a cold weight pressed on his heart. He studied his old guide, fighting against the numb acknowledgment of the situation threading into his being. “But I am undone.”
“Yes, you are.”
Torin growled, his patience fraying. “If I am not in the next life, old man, then where am I? Where is Kala?”
The Old Seer smiled again. Enigmatic. Calm. “You are waiting.”
“Waiting?” Torin grappled with the black anger twisting through his tenuous control. “For what?”
“To allow the question and the answer.”
Torin closed his eyes again and pulled a steadying breath. The white light flowed through him once more but this time there came no serenity. Syunna, was his old guide always this frustrating? Eyes still closed, he began a slow count to one hundred, focusing on each muscle in his body one at a time. Forcing calm into every individual one.
“When you allow yourself to acknowledge the question and the answer in your soul your waiting will end.”
He opened his eyes and glared at the ancient man, his meditation forgotten. “I know of no question, old man. Only a statement uttered to me by someone I once thought I could trust. ‘The One Who Burns will be your undoing. And your end’.”
The Old Seer nodded, and if he was hurt by Torin’s words he did not show it. “Yes.”
Torin studied him, the anger in his blood growing thicker. He didn’t want to be here—wherever “here” was. He wanted to be with Kala. He wanted to hold her close and take away every second of pain he’d brought to her life. He want
ed to say sorry. He wanted to tell her he loved her. He wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. Curse it, if he wasn’t dead, why was he—
An icy fist punched into his soul and his mouth turned dry. “She took the sword. Kala took the sword, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Is she dead?”
The Old Seer didn’t respond. Just stood there in the omnipresent white light, sightless eyes holding Torin’s glare.
The icy fist slammed into him again. “Is. Kala. Dead?”
Silence.
No. No, by the gods, no.
He took a step forward, hands balled into fists. “Is Kala Rei dead, old man?”
The Old Seer shook his head. “That is not the question you seek the answer to, last command warrior of the Sol Order.”
Torin’s rage turned hot. “There is no other question more important,” he snapped.
The Old Seer smiled. “There is, Torin. A most important question and answer.”
He squeezed his fists tighter. “What answer? What question?”
The old man’s eyelids fluttered closed. “In the hands of the One Who Burns, the heart of the lone will bring force to the Sun Sword, destroying the dark and giving birth to the light. In the hands of the False Fire, the Sun Sword will bring death to the heart of the lone and the light will consume all.”
Torin clenched his jaw and took another step forward. “Damn you, Seer. Enough of the prophecy crap. I get it. I am a part of it as much as Kala, but I don’t care! Is the woman I love alive?”
The Old Seer raised his eyebrows again. “Who is the woman you love, Torin Kerridon? Have you pondered that? The One Who Burns? The ultimate warrior? A woman powered by peace and acceptance? ” He held his head at an angle, a quizzical expression on his seamed face. “Or the False Fire? The ultimate weapon? A woman fueled by hate and revenge? Who is Kala Rei? ” He paused, his white eyes revealing nothing. “To you?”
Torin lifted his chin and fixed the man who had guided him since birth with a level, defiant stare. “She is both.”
“So tell me, Torin,” the old man went on, as calm and composed as always, “which one took the blade? The woman loved by you, or the woman tortured by every other living soul she has ever known?” His sightless stare grew intent, his expression more ambiguous than ever. “Who woke the sword forged by the Eldest Immortal from its slumber, poured heat into its existence and plunged it into your heart? The seed? Or the perversion?”
The Sun Sword Page 15
