Fate of the Drowned (The Broken Lands Book 3)

by Carrie Summers

  My knee was shattered. Bone grated on bone when I tried to move. The slash in my arm ached, the muscle laid open.

  Parveld looked sad.

  “You hurt,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ll fix it.”

  My breath was ragged. It was so hard to think. Harder to speak.

  “You can still fight it,” I whispered. “This isn’t you, Parveld.”

  The man smiled with one corner of his mouth, shaking his head as if amused. “You’ll see soon enough, my young friend. There’s nothing to fight. I have just a little more work to do. You see, I couldn’t quite understand what the Bracer was telling me.” He raised his arm and pulled back his sleeve to expose the Bracer of Sight. “It made no sense why I saw Savra and her sister wandering through the provinces when I’d already cast her free from bodily concerns.”

  I stiffened. The Bracer? Savra? When I’d fallen into the Heartstone’s cavern, I’d laid my black-iron sword on the stone beside me. It lay off to my right now, just out of reach. Waves of agony battered me as I tried to wiggle toward it. Parveld rolled his eyes and kicked the weapon away.

  “I don’t know how you managed to return her spirit to her body, but it was a good choice to send her south. If anyone can find a way to reach the rift, it’s our dear Savra. Fortunately for me, in the same way I foresaw us having this conversation, I’ve anticipated the need to hurry south and stop her efforts.”

  I shook my head. “Savra’s dead. I watched a mountain bury her.”

  The man sighed. “I admire you. Fighting to the last, using your wits when your body is exhausted. Unfortunately, Kostan, my time is short. Enjoy your time beyond the veil. May you find peace until we meet again in the final communion.”

  The dagger flashed in the air. Humans screamed. As the blade plunged through my armor, my ribs gave way with the force of the blow. Cold steel pierced my heart. My breath gurgled. As darkness pressed in, I felt the familiar sick sensation of my heart and lungs being pulled from my throat. Even as my life faded, Parveld drew from my spirit to power his magic. Black closed over my sight.

  Savra.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Savra

  Inside the Maelstrom

  WE TREKKED SOUTH along the old road that traveled Cosmal’s coast, treading a narrow corridor between walls of frothing water. The sea had blunted the peninsula, rounding edges of the landscape and pummeling flat the pitiful structures humans had built over the centuries. Springy and stubborn, many leafless stands of brush had remained. The tangled thickets were clogged with algae and worse things that smelled of decay. According to Father, at least a third of Cosmal’s citizens had died. I didn’t want to think about who or what might be causing the stench.

  An hour or so beyond Waystation Dukket, my father passed off his rucksack to my mother and swung Avill up onto his back. She laid her cheek against his shoulder and closed her eyes. With the roaring wind and the crashing waves that beat at the wall of air defending us, we couldn’t hear one another speak. We could only walk.

  Darkness fell around the time we reached Agartown, the settlement north of our home. The buildings were gone, all except for a stone-walled shed, and beside it an intact sluice box that had somehow avoided destruction.

  We hurried past the site of Numintown, eyes locked to the washed-out road. Even so, the hints of ruin exposed by the starlight made my chest ache.

  At the southernmost tip of the peninsula, we stood on a rocky outcrop that had once marked the end of the world. The gibbous moon rose to our left, casting strange light through the walls of water to either side of us. I stared, shaking my head. All my life, nothing but angry ocean had lain beyond this point. Now, it was just another landmark on our journey. With a shrug, my father adjusted Avill’s weight, stepped off the outcrop, and started trudging along the silt and muck of the sea bottom.

  When dawn came, we stopped and stood in the roaring center of the parted sea and ate breakfast as if it were another day. Avill kept her eyes closed, allowing Mother to slip bites past her teeth.

  Holding open a corridor as long as the peninsula was beyond even the mighty power of Guralan’s winds and Avill’s capability. Instead, the wind ramped down behind us, cleaving a trough. When the raging air reached the ocean bottom, the current split and formed the shape of a teardrop that surrounded us with those towering walls. They rose to the height of ten men, now. After traveling so far, the wind had shed its load of debris, allowing us to look into the sea from the side. Black water faded to green and then to the frothing tops of the waves.

  As we stood, Avill cocked her head and adjusted the wind so that its howl punched into the water rather than pressing so hard against our ears. In the relative quiet, I heard my family sigh in relief.

  After she ate, Azar approached the walls, stopping only when the gale began to tear at her silk tunic and trousers. She shook her head in wonderment as she craned her neck to take in the immense cliff of ocean overhead. I wasn’t nearly so brave. Most of the time, I’d tried to keep my eyes on the ground for fear that I’d start to panic.

  “How are you, sweet one?” my mother asked after she finished feeding Avill.

  Avill seemed to struggle over the words. “It’s so hard. But we must…We have to go on.”

  Father nodded. “We can’t turn around now.”

  “I’ll carry her for a while, Evrain,” my mother said.

  My father hesitated, then nodded. “Fair enough. But leave your rucksack. It’s foolish for us to bring a tenday’s supply of food. We should abandon everything besides water and enough meals for another day or two.”

  My mother pursed her lips as she calculated the meaning behind his words. Another day or two of food might take us to the center of the Maelstrom. But Avill wouldn’t be able to stay awake to hold back the water longer than that. Regardless of what we found in the center of the raging sea, we wouldn’t be able to return the way we’d come.

  A sense of fatalism gripped me. So be it. Kostan’s army wouldn’t hold forever. If we didn’t make this journey and find a way to close the rift, no one in the Empire would live to see Deepwinter anyway. Better to go quickly, perhaps.

  Avill’s arms flopped over my mother’s shoulders, and her head lolled before settling into place against Mother’s back. Mother grimaced and hiked Avill’s weight higher on her hips, leaning forward to keep my sister from tipping backward. Jaw hard, she began marching.

  Azar laid a hand on my shoulder as they moved off. “How long can your sister last?”

  I shrugged as I brought my aura-sight to life. My pulse raced at the sight of Avill’s fading spirit. She’d given so much already. Two days worth of food seemed far too much.

  “She’s strong,” I said. “We’ll just have to hope.”

  As Mother trudged on, Father, Azar, and I crouched among the rucksacks and discarded the food, clothing, and bedrolls we no longer needed. I took the first turn carrying our reduced supplies so that my father could recover from supporting Avill on his back.

  Azar fell in step beside me as I set out. “At least the view is dramatic,” she said, glancing at the ring of sea surrounding us.

  I picked up a rock with a tuft of seaweed growing on it. When I tossed it, seawater sprayed. The air smelled like low tide. I breathed deep, remembering early mornings in Numintown when Avill and I used to walk along the shore, propping one another up when a wave came rushing over our legs. An idea glimmered to life.

  “Do you know anything about bolstering someone else’s power?” I asked Azar.

  Savra! Fantastic! Lilik said.

  “You want to give power to Avill? I’ve never heard of something like that.”

  “When Havialo attacked Steelhold, spiritists fed him energy. I’m not sure how.”

  Azar chewed her lip then shrugged.

  How about you, Lilik? I asked.

  With a shadowbond, it’s easy, she said. But between two living people, I don’t know.

 
I’d just have to experiment. Hurrying forward, I laid a hand on my sister’s back. Mother stopped, casting me a questioning glance, and I raised a finger to ask for patience.

  Rather than spearing Avill with a lance of my aura, I wrapped my spirit around her. Then I imagined giving a portion of my spirit to her, pushing it down like water soaking into a sponge. Her body felt impervious as stone. I pressed harder.

  Abruptly, I fell into the bottomless pit that was my sister. She sucked at me, desperate and hungry. Frantic, I tried to shut off our connection. I was water, but not a steady seep into a sponge. I was gurgling down a wide drain. Nothing I did could plug it.

  Distantly, I heard a yelp. A sack of wet grain hit me from the side. Only after I splashed down into a shallow, muck-filled puddle did I realize Azar had tackled me.

  I felt dizzy, bewildered, and utterly spent.

  “Please don’t do that again,” Azar said. “Or warn me first, at least.”

  Groggily, I peered my sister. She’d perked up and now helped my mother by holding on.

  “Well, I feel better,” she said mildly.

  Azar helped me to my feet. I wasn’t sure I could walk, but my legs moved of their own accord. My spirit had been drained, but my physical body soldiered on.

  The day grew longer, and the sun beat down. The damp air held the heat, and soon I’d stripped off my cloak and left it behind. A sheen of sweat coated everyone’s face. With a little furrow of her brow and a wave of her hand, Avill peeled off a tendril of wind and sent it to cool us.

  “Show off,” I said.

  Ever so slowly, my spirit began to recover. I no longer felt hollow. Just brittle inside. Azar carried my sister next, and then it was my turn. I felt her breath against my neck as I trudged forward. Regardless of what waited ahead, I was grateful beyond words to have spent these last days with my family.

  Mid-afternoon, the sea ahead gradually lightened in color from a deep greenish-black through emerald and finally to a translucent green like glass. We stopped and stared as fish swam through the visible column of water.

  “If I’m not mistaken, the sea… ends?” I said.

  “Oh storms, I hope so,” Avill said. “Put me down, Savra. You’re slow as a half-dead mule.”

  I snorted. “It’s about time you decided to walk for yourself.”

  My body felt light after I lowered her to the ground. I stood straight and rolled my shoulders. Muscles I hadn’t known about ached after the day and a half of constant walking. But at least my spirit had nearly rebounded. From a conversation months ago, I remembered Havialo explaining that mages and spiritists had an inner source of power that replenished over time.

  When Avill started jogging forward, I regretted setting her free. With a groan, I forced my feet to keep up lest the trailing wall of wind catch up with me.

  Abruptly, our bubble of safety burst from the sea and exposed a sun-baked circle of empty landscape. Avill ran into the open, and I started sprinting for the exit, afraid she would forget to hold back the sea behind her. But to my sister’s credit, she whirled and watched us exit the passage she’d made. Only then did she release her control of Guralan’s winds.

  I looked around in awe. Unlike the vertical walls Avill had created, here the sea sloped down to the center. The currents circled us, a steady march that swirled around and down as if emptying through a funnel that lay a few hundred paces underground. Yet beneath our feet, the earth was dry and cracked. Sun glared off a crust of salt. As Avill sank to a seat, the crust broke and released puffs of dust.

  I turned a slow circle, taking in the view. This had to be the center of the Maelstrom. The area was perhaps three hundred paces across. Near the middle, a few stray humps of stone broke the flat surface. Otherwise, the circle was barren and desolate. Eerie silence surrounded us, made even stranger by the roiling water at the perimeter of the area.

  “So… we’re here?” my father asked.

  I ran my teeth over my lip. I’d never really expected to make it. The scene felt like something from a dream. “I guess so.”

  With a nod, my father scooped up Avill. I followed as he set out with long strides for the center of the area.

  We stopped short upon spotting the figure huddled among the stones.

  The woman wore traveling clothes, torn and stained and of a style that was completely unfamiliar to me. It was her auburn hair that made my heart beat faster. Auburn like Nevyn’s daughter. Auburn like mine.

  She looked up as we approached, face blank save for a faint touch of confusion. “Is it… You’re here. Is it over?”

  “Nevyn?” I asked.

  Her lips pressed together. “I—I believe that was my name.”

  Stepping closer, I noticed that she ran her hands over a shimmering section of air. A globe around arms-width across, the area was hard to look at. My mind ached when I tried to understand it. It was as if her arms surrounded nothingness. As the Lethin had called it, a void. Yet the Hunger’s realm wasn’t quite exposed, either.

  This was the rift. Or rather, the thinning in the barrier. The breach wasn’t complete, or we wouldn’t still be standing here.

  My father set Avill beside one of the stone outcrops and helped her lean back. Within a breath, my sister was asleep.

  I crouched near Nevyn, carefully avoiding the oily nothingness before her. “What did you mean when you asked whether it was over?”

  A parade of expressions crossed Nevyn’s face. Wistfulness and confusion and concern. “I’ve been holding the barrier together. It’s been so long. The others did something to help, but that’s almost gone. I thought maybe you came to release me.”

  “The other mages of the Lethin?”

  Nevyn stared into the distance while considering my question then nodded. “They told me they planned to dam the flood. But I knew it wouldn’t work.”

  “You’ve been here all these years. More than a thousand. How?”

  Behind me, Father let out a low whistle. I glanced at him and nodded.

  “I saw past what the other said was possible. I knew I must hold this together, that I might need to wait for a long time for someone to help me. So I created the magic to sustain my life.”

  Amazing, Lilik whispered. Parveld would have auctioned off his limbs for a chance to meet this woman.

  “I want to do more than release you. I want to help you close the rift. Tell me how.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. It will limit you.”

  Right. Nevyn believed that the limitations of magic were created by failings of imagination.

  “Then where do I begin?”

  She peered at me, her eyes seeming to see past the boundaries of my flesh and straight into my soul. “Yes, I think you might have the strength to help me finish this. Come close. To work against it, you must understand it. You must find your own way to be the void’s enemy.”

  ***

  After an hour spent with my hands near the rent between worlds, my shoulders ached. My calves had gone numb. But considering that Nevyn had been maintaining the barrier for a thousand years, I didn’t have space to complain.

  The void was greed, jealousy, insatiable Hunger. It wanted our world for the simple act of taking. It would consume us but offer nothing in return. It was sorrow. It held despair.

  And finally, I understood how to break it.

  The people around me represented everything the Hunger was not. They possessed the incomprehensible ability to hope even when the circumstances defied all reason for it. Together, my family had walked to the edge of the Maelstrom, and more, we’d plunged into its heart. Even though I’d had no notion of how to close the breach, they’d supported me.

  Farther away, the Provs in the villages we’d visited had turned from their hatreds and given me their faith. All on the words of a young woman describing the man she’d fallen in love with. Kostan was out there somewhere, standing against the darkness he could never hope to defeat.


  Humanity’s indomitable spirit, our boundless hope and unbreakable capacity for love. Those were the magics that could beat the Hunger. Now I only needed to understand how to shape them.

  I fell into my aura-sight and envisioned my connection to my family as an extension of my spirit. Like Parveld’s unification of magic, I imagined myself combining and channeling the good qualities in those who surrounded me. As I shaped my aura to gather from their spirits, power swelled inside me. I began to trickle it toward the space in front of my hands.

  A beginning of a seal. But not enough.

  I needed energy from more spirits. As I stretched farther, reaching out over the Maelstrom and toward the provinces, a circle of light began to glow on the ground beside me.

  I shook my head, confused. That wasn’t my doing, was it?

  “Azar?” I asked.

  “Not me.”

  The area grew brighter and brighter. I squinted against the glare.

  With a thunderclap, Parveld winked into existence.

  Loosed by his sudden arrival, a fist of air knocked me to the side. My hand shot out to break my fall as I clung desperately to my magic and the work I’d begun. Avill toppled sideways, waking with a start.

  With a yelp, my father leaped to his feet. His sword hissed from the scabbard. Parveld glanced in his direction, flicked a hand, and sent my father flying.

  “Hello, everyone,” the mage said.

  Azar screamed and rushed at him. Again, Parveld waved his hand as if shooing a fly. The woman went sailing over the cracked earth, hit with a thud, and tumbled to a stop.

  Panic seized me. We couldn’t have come so far to lose now. I bit down hard on my lip, forcing focus. Parveld might be powerful, but I’d learned how to oppose the Hunger’s evil. I understood how to wield the magic of human nobility.

  Closing my eyes, I formed a hammer of my spirit. With a scream of defiance, I sent it sledging into the man’s chest. He grunted and fell back, and when he tried to rise, I speared his limbs to the ground with lances of honor and joy.