“He believes otherwise.” He suddenly let out a cry and stumbled, wrenching from her grasp to fall to his hands a knees. He gasped and kept himself from falling further. “He knows. Nolen knows.” He raised his eyes and looked down the long dark hall as if deciding something. A new light appeared in his eyes, and he gritted his teeth. “We’re going.”
The men helped him to his feet, and Gabriel ran grabbing Robyn’s hand and pulling her along. She could tell he was fighting something by the way his face pinched.
Gabriel suddenly let out a grunt as though someone had punched him and missed a step. Robyn reached a free hand to keep him steady and moving, her fingers connected with the neckpiece, and she gripped it for all it was worth.
Two things happened when her skin touched the underside of the copper: first Gabriel’s knees buckled suddenly as though the muscles in his legs were cut, and secondly, every essence and molecule that made up the Mage flowed into her.
The Castrofax neckpiece glowed bright white, illuminating the dark shaft, and bringing the others to a halt as it casted beams of fractured light on the walls. Robyn’s eyes widened as new sensations rushed into her. She felt every drop of water, every person, every flickering flame, and every growing green thing above them. She could feel herself through him, excited and frightened and desperate. She felt him as well, the thin layer of hope coating the despair that threatened to drown him. His lips parted; his eyebrows arched, and his mouth fell agape as the world bended around them.
Power and strength rushed through the connection, flowing from him through her and back into him in a closed circuit. She felt as though she could break the earth and bury the palace, wrench the seas from their cradle, and mold the fires deep beneath the soil while ripping the very foundation of life and putting it back together. All living things bearing energy called her to use them. The mountains were hers to flatten; the seas were hers to evaporate; the fire was there to cleanse her, and the people to make her anew. Gabriel brought his hands up to her wrist, but she was not finished, and she tightened her grip. The companions around her felt stunned, but she was wrapped in a world of pleasure she could put no name to, and she cared not what they thought.
The world seemed brighter, sharper, and Gabriel’s wide eyes seemed far bluer than she ever remembered, the blacks in his cloak far softer, and the sleekness in his hair more like oiled raven feathers than true locks. Blood beat in her ears, but it took her a moment to realize it was not her heartbeat she heard, but Gabriel’s. Her own heartbeat rhythmically joined to his a moment later, altered by the course of energy flowing through them. He pulled back on her grip as a sense of anxiety flowed from him into her, and she slowly felt the mountains release her, the seas stopped calling, the trees bended away, the clouds pulled back, the fires chilled her, and the people died around her. Finally her hand was freed.
She fell back to a seated position and stared up at Gabriel who gasped with wide eyes. For all her strength and control, she broke down weeping at the loss of the sensations. He sat back on his heels and lowered his head, trying to catch his breath.
“Is that—is that how the Elements feel inside you?” She wept, trying to catch her emotions.
“Once,” he whispered.
“I’m so sorry for you,” she said, barely audible. “The mountains called to me.”
He stood to his feet with help from Talon. “The mountains are too far away. You felt the earth’s energies. The earth always speaks because it is always alive.” He extended a hand and helped her up. “Don’t do that again.”
“I couldn’t bear to let go if I did,” she said and wiped her eyes, silently cursing her parents for not being Mages and cursing Nolen to the highest stars for binding Gabriel.
Faintly, a silver slip of light pulled from the center of Gabriel’s chest in a line, shooting to the ceiling. It faded slowly from her view, but she knew she had seen a thread of pattern. “Nolen knows where I am.” They started running again, the scuffs of their boots echoing off the walls, gasping at the end of the tunnel that glowed with blue starlight.
Outside, the palace was alive. On the wall, someone ran by with leaded boots while another man shouted orders. Robyn was certain her men were in a frenzy throughout the City, but the contortionist had not signaled retreat. The axmen waited with the horses and came running at first sight, their weathered faces tight with concern.
Gabriel was quick to vault her into the saddle as easily as a child. “This is where I leave you.” She tried to argue but he held up a hand. “He can find me when he lays a pattern because the strings of Elements come from my chest. He can track me anywhere, and he’ll find you with me. You need to go to Jaden.”
“Gabriel, suffocation will last only a moment.”
He steeled his back and something wild passed behind his eyes, a memory she could not see. “I’ve never pulled rank on you, but I am still a Class Ten. Go to Jaden where you will be safe and leave me here. I will be here when you come for your throne.” His eyes lied, but she did not have time to pry, for he winced and his knees wavered.
Calsifer put a hand under Gabriel’s arm and kept him steady, and Gabriel slowly raised his eyes to Robyn, his weakness revealed in that one moment. “What’s he done to you?” she whispered. His lips parted, but he hesitated. His eyes suddenly snapped shut, and he threw his head back as his knees buckled. The cry ripped from his throat adjoined to the clap of thunder and the flash of lightning that struck close to them.
Calsifer tried to pull Gabriel up as Robyn’s mare reared and the horses spooked, but Gabriel pushed him off. “Go—just go! He’s close!”
Robyn spotted the unmistakable gray bolt of Nolen’s destrier racing around the corner of the wall well off, but not too far for her. She jerked her bow free and strung an arrow as another flash of lightning crashed through the night sky. This time Gabriel did not scream, but he did not rise or make an effort to move. She knocked the arrow and aimed, drew, and let loose.
She missed, but there was another arrow in the string before the first arrow could clatter to the ground. The bow was a recurve, easier to pull than a longbow and easier to hold back to give her that second to aim better. She drew and released the held breath, watching Nolen charge closer moving slightly right. Leading him, she calculated where he would be in seconds, and let fly. She held her breath as she watched and measured.
Nolen reeled back as the shaft struck him in the shoulder, burying itself to the fletching. He had not been knocked from the saddle, for his horse kept him steady, veering to the side to balance him before racing onward. ‘Then I will kill your beast,’ she thought and drew another arrow, but a gust of wind kicked up off the river. She aimed high and far right to catch the wind, but as she drew, Gabriel let out a choked cry and the world turned white.
Chapter 4
Gabriel knelt on the smooth cobblestones, feeling the gaps between them digging into his legs. He looked at the spot where Robyn had fallen. Her horse lay dead with a hind leg pointed morbidly where the lightning bolt had exited.
Nolen struck his face again, but Gabriel hardly felt it. His vision narrowed in on the pool of blood that had not come from the horse. Robyn’s bow had shattered into a hundred glorious pieces, exploding like a rain of tan shards and scattered around him. It filled the air with smoldering wood and burnt hair.
“Where is she?” Nolen screamed and hit him so hard he fell to his side. The Prince’s voice was like an echo in a cavern. Gabriel blinked as Nolen grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him back up on his knees. “Is she still alive?”
“My Prince,” a soldier behind Nolen said and picked something up from the other side of the horse. He held it up gingerly, but Gabriel could see it through Nolen’s legs. A hand, severed at the wrist.
Gabriel doubled over and retched between Nolen’s boots, making the Prince jump back. His shoulders shook as he leaned on them. If Robyn was still alive, she was crippled, maimed, horribly in pain. He spit the acid from his mouth.
The lightning strike had found the tip of her arrow, passed through her, and exited through the horse, killing the beast instantly. She fell to the ground silently like a sack of grain, everything he lived to protect for years. The blond man grabbed her and hefted her into Calsifer’s lap. “Jaden,” the General had stated. They were gone in a moment, thundering down the cobbles and vanishing between the buildings. That was the last he saw of Robyn.
He spit bile and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Nolen looked smug as he raised his eyes. “She’s dead, isn’t she.”
“I—I don’t know,” Gabriel shuttered, carefully not making eye contact.
“Bring me a body!” Nolen shouted. The soldiers gathering around them returned to their horses. “Captain, give me your rope,” Nolen said far off. Gabriel’s eyes went back to the puddle of splattered blood and hoped to the stars she was still alive. ‘I could do it. I could mend a wound like that. Even as I am. Even if it killed me.’
Nolen jerked Gabriel to his feet and wrapped the rope around his neck. Nolen bound his hands together and tied them off, keeping the remainder coiled around the Prince’s gloved hand. There was a hole through his green coat where the arrow had pierced, but Nolen healed it with Gabriel’s Spirit Element as soon as it was pulled free. He mounted Shibaler and jerked Gabriel along. Gabriel would have not mind being paraded had he succeeded in keeping Robyn safe, but her wound fresh in his mind gnawed at his very being.
“Your father is forfeit.”
“I wasn’t trying to escape,” Gabriel argued.
“Certainly looks otherwise.”
“Why would I flee when you can always find me?”
Nolen looked down. “You will still pay for this.”
The Prince kicked Shibaler into a trot, forcing Gabriel to jog along. Nolen had pulled the energies from Gabriel’s body to make lightning so quickly it had left him unable to stand. A fraction of his energy had vanished, and he was stretched a little more to the end of his tether. What really left him reeling was Robyn’s connection with the neckpiece Castrofax. The energy had come back to him in the end, but he was stretched a little more when she broke connection.
The feeling of her had terrified him as their energies coursed together. He felt ripped apart inside as the Elements diverted into her and back to him along with vestiges of her consciousness. Her eagerness to free him still lingered in him, and for a moment he forgot the horrors the night had brought.
Nolen trotted him through the palace gates that stood wide open with edgy soldiers that watched the shadows. The Prince jerked the rope forcing Gabriel to catch himself on Shibaler’s saddle.
“Found him?” a Commander with a perching eagle emblazoned on his chest asked as Nolen slowed to a walk.
“Get me a bull,” Nolen replied and continued moving into the livery section of the courtyard, set back to the far left in a bay. It was the closest part of the courtyard to the prisons, and Gabriel had seen a pillory and gallows erected before. Sure enough, Nolen walked in that direction. Soldiers swarmed around them; most half-dressed and missing their coats, but all had their swords. Some looked ready for blood revenge for being woken in the middle of the night.
“Is that the Star Breaker?” someone close asked. “It’s about time he pays.”
Nolen dropped the reins and dismounted fluidly, jerking Gabriel along by his hands. The pillory was made of six sets of stocks, a dozen swinging nooses, a breaking wheel, and four whipping posts, darkened with use. Nolen grabbed a torch from a soldier and mounted the steps. Gabriel resisted only a moment, but Nolen flung his weight into the rope, causing Gabriel to fall on the steps.
“That’s a Mage,” someone said, looking at the black cloak draped over Gabriel’s shoulders, threatening to fall at any moment. “That’s one of the Prince’s own people.” Another man laughed. “Idiot, that’s the man who made the stars fall. He broke that star up yonder. He’s had this coming a long time.”
Gabriel followed Nolen and listened to the crowd buzzing. Torches illuminated the area, lighting the whipping post, and somewhere to his left someone called for his blood. Nolen set the torch aside. He jerked Gabriel to a middle post and looped the rope high up through an iron ring, pulling Gabriel’s arms high over his head. The cloak slipped from his back that faced the crowd, and Nolen tied the rope off on a bracket. The Commander trotted up the stairs and handed the Prince a long bullwhip.
Nolen turned to the crowd. “This man claims he was not trying to escape, yet we found him outside the wall! He is the one who woke you at the ides of night. Do you think he lies?”
Gabriel cringed at the roar. His fingers reached for the rope to grip and put his head against the post, feeling the humiliation wash over him. His pride was one of the few things he had left, but it seemed that would be taken from him tonight as well.
Nolen took fistfuls of the back of Gabriel’s shirt and ripped it down the center in a violent movement. Tucking the ends over his shoulders, he leaned closer. “Who has all the tiles now?”
Nolen took a step back, and Gabriel braced himself.
The first strike stung, but the cheers of the crowd cut him deeper. He had felt worse from Nolen who preferred the cat-of-nine. Though this one would eventually make him bleed, he set his resolve and closed his eyes, willing himself to not feel the pain.
The second strike was much harder, so hard it flung Gabriel against the post and made him cry out. The familiar spill of hot blood dripped over his back, and he tilted his head to look at the Prince. As he suspected, Nolen had twirled an Air pattern around the whip to give it better force and speed. The crowd screamed for more.
He braced his weight, centered between his boots and the post to allow for better balance against the strikes. The third and fourth left him gasping, and his back raw where the long slashes left their mark. The soldiers loved it, cheering loudly.
He lost count after seven as his mind began to focus in on the pain. His only saving grace during his torture had been his own mental chant, ‘It did not hurt, it did not hurt, it did not hurt.’ But with all that happened tonight, he could not focus. His head jerked up as a cry escaped his clenched teeth, and the crowd screamed for more.
Gabriel could feel the strength leaving his knees, and two hits later, he could not bear to stand. Slowly, he pulled himself back up, and to his surprise, Nolen stopped long enough for him to stand.
His back was raw and hot. The top of his trousers damp with warm blood, but Nolen did not stop, for the crowd called for ‘more! More!’ Gabriel took two more before he spotted something golden out of the corner of his eye. Prince Balien strode forward, a calm look on his face. The Prince was clad in a long golden cloak over a short red coat that made him look powerful. Had Gabriel been thinking correctly, he would have known Balien had chosen the garments to make a statement.
“Do not spoil my fun,” Nolen reprimanded as though he spoke with a child.
Balien passed out of Gabriel’s vision. “Your fun is already spoiled.” The whipping stopped. “Prince Nolen, you cannot expect this man to perform for you if you keep molesting him. He must be at full strength to be with the Arconians, and I can assure you they are not happy with this.”
Gabriel blinked sweat from his eyes and looked up at the palace. ‘How long had this been going on? Long enough for Balien to be alerted, don something respectable, and meet with the Arconians along the way.’ He did not think it felt that long.
“It is shameful for a woman of honor to bed a man publically humiliated. You will be lucky if any of them still want him. He must also have enough strength to lend you his energy. Everyone knows a weakened Mage lacks the stamina to fight. It will be days before he is ready to fight now, even once he is healed.”
“If he is healed,” Nolen corrected, and Gabriel grunted. Knowing he would be healed always kept him stronger through the tortures.
“A man with these wounds cannot do what you have asked of him.”
“Yes,” Nolen turned away. “But t
he crowd wants more!” The men sent up a cheer in agreement.
Gabriel hurt too badly to care. The throbbing in his back had only begun to increase. As the moments passed, the deeper cuts sent pinging messages to his essence, telling him to stop whatever he was doing. His knees strengthened a little, and he leaned his head on the post as his breath rasped from his throat. It caught as he felt another lash cut into him, driving deeply from left to right horizontally. An anguished cry escaped his lips.
In all the physical pain he mired in, the image of Robyn’s severed hand caused the wounds to throb. The sense of hopelessness sank over him as his mind ran through a cycle of shock. Enduring tortures before had been simpler knowing Robyn was safe, but his shock chipped away at his strong will.
The last lash caught him across the back of his knees, but he did not buckle like Nolen hoped. He remained standing, though he shook from the pain. “Put him under the theater. I am not finished yet.” Nolen flung the whip to the ground behind him and stomped away. He threw a triumphant fist to the sky, and cheers raised from the crowd.
“Captain, Lieutenant, cut this man down,” Balien commanded, and two men climbed onto the platform. Gabriel ached but his senses were acute enough to know Prince Balien could not publically undermine Prince Nolen who still stood as Commander of the armies. Nor could he be shown to have taken a side. Those loyal to Prince Nolen could revolt and ruin Balien’s work, or put Gabriel in a truly dangerous situation.
The binds were cut, and Gabriel managed to remain on his feet a full second before exhaustion made him swoon. A man behind caught him and lowered him to the planks.
“Get that rope off him,” Balien said in a disgusted tone. The crowd dispersed grudgingly behind them.
“Easy, lad,” the Captain said behind him. “Would you have us take him to a healer?”
Balien looked down and met Gabriel’s eyes, gritting his square jaw tightly. “Put him in a room under the theater—gently.”
Breaking Stars (Book 2) Page 5
