“Your mother was Kaie, wasn’t she?” He murmured in her ear. “The witch who murdered her own sister.”
Eolyn struck him with her elbow, but he only tightened the tether, making her choke.
The High Mages formed a triangle around them and began a slow chant in a language she did not recognize. A knot of terror took hold inside. What manner of curse could require so many mages?
Tzeremond gripped her chin and forced her gaze to the battlefield. “In truth, I am grateful to you, Eolyn, for you have brought us our final triumph. Today, all resistance to the Mage Kings of Moisehén will end, and the last of your perverse magic will be purged from our land. We have waited long for this day. We have crafted it with great patience. My Order, my King, and I.”
She squeezed words out between agonized gasps. “I will not listen to your lies!”
“You are wise not to trust me, maga, but then why would I deceive you now, when our triumph is at hand?” He stroked her hair. “You remember the boy, Achim?”
Eolyn’s heart faltered. Hairline cracks spread over its pulsating surface.
“Yes,” Tzeremond said. “I see you do. Achim was not as naïve as you and your Doyenne assumed. He saw what you were from the beginning, and he understood how to use you for his purposes. He cultivated your trust because he knew, as all my students know, that the stronger the illusion of friendship, the more brutal the betrayal. The more shattered the betrayed, the greater the power we derive from their fall. The Mage Prince has only ever wanted three things from you, Eolyn. To avenge the death of his mother, to make your magic his own, and to put an end to the perfidious defiance of the magas. Today he will see his desires fulfilled. My King will slay your brother and slaughter your friends. Then he will come to possess you, to finish what he asked me to begin.”
Eolyn fought to invoke a counter spell, but it was no use. Tzeremond had cut off her breath. What kind of fool was she, to have suspected nothing when she saw the ravens? To have dismantled her circle without as much as a glance at her back?
“Look at what is happening, Eolyn.” Tzeremond spoke, but it was Achim’s voice she heard upon his lips. “See this battle for what it is.”
Eolyn’s spirit was sucked into a screaming tunnel and thrown into the midst of the battle. Bears grappled tigers, knights hacked down foot soldiers. The air was murky with blood and dust. Men and women lay broken across the landscape. The stench of scorched fur and burning corpses stung her nostrils.
She heard Akmael’s war cry before she saw him. He charged her brother, and they met in a horrible clash of metal upon metal, fiercer than any beast around them. Ernan’s red locks whipped through the air. Akmael’s curls lay matted against his brow. The King’s face was dark, the magic that coursed through him ominous.
Ernan faltered before his adversary. The blade of the Galian wizard glanced off Akmael’s armor and slipped against the King’s axe. The weapon betrayed Ernan time and again, in subtle but crucial ways. With each swing, Eolyn’s brother tired a bit more. Yet Ernan did not seem to notice. Lost in his obsession for vengeance, he was unable to recognize his dream unraveling.
And Akmael…
Akmael, Eolyn realized with icy dread, was toying with her brother, letting him stumble, fall and come back only to give him another debilitating blow.
Ernan staggered and leaned over, struggling for breath, eyes blinking rose colored sweat.
Kel’Barú slipped useless from his hands.
Eolyn let go a desperate sob.
The King moved in for the kill.
Eolyn cried out to Akmael to stop, but she had no voice. Such was the power of Tzeremond’s curse. Eolyn saw, but could not be seen. She heard, but could not speak. She could not turn away or close her eyes.
The King drove a fist into Ernan’s face. Her brother’s head snapped back, burgundy streams flew from his lips. Again Akmael hit him. Armor and mail tore away strips of flesh. Ernan responded with a few blind swings, but his nose had caved in, and his cheeks were being transformed into raw pulp.
Stop it, Achim! Eolyn’s heart collapsed into the pit of her stomach. Stop!
Ernan sank to his knees, keeled over, and lay on the ground, his breath reduced to a rasping gurgle.
The Mage King towered above him, shoulders heaving. His face was filled with contempt, his eyes black as a moonless night. He took the haft of his axe in both hands and brought the blade down upon her brother’s throat.
The Syrnte captain studied Rishona, a frown upon his face, his steed restless beneath him.
“My Lady,” he said, “If we join the battle now, there may still be an opportunity to—”
“I said, go!” Rishona replied. “The windows have closed. My brother is dead, Ernan has fallen. The Mage King will have his victory, and there is nothing our warriors can do to stop it. Our time here is finished. There is nothing left in this place to die for.”
He nodded his assent. “And you, my Lady?”
Rishona drew a shaky breath. I do not know. Perhaps I have nothing left to live for. “I will follow shortly. Let me say one last prayer for my brother, that he may find his way across the abyss in peace.”
He signaled the men. They scattered silently through the woods, disappearing fast among the shadows.
Rishona watched them go with a heavy heart and broken spirit. She dismounted and paced circles among the trees, gloved hands clenched at her sides.
Oh, Tahmir.
Loss ripped through her soul. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Sinking against a tree, she struck the bark with her fist.
Beyond the woods, battle cries were undercut by the low thunder of a second charge, the charge she had intended to meet.
Regret closed tight around her heart. She looked in the direction of her warriors, but they were already well away.
Have I made a mistake?
For the first time in memory, she could not see a clear path to the future. She felt lost and alone, abandoned by all her guides and loved ones.
Gathering damp leaves in both hands, Rishona buried her face in the aroma of earth and water, of death and renewed life.
Of home.
Was that not what she felt when she wandered these hills? Rishona had always pretended to be a stranger from a distant land. Yet she belonged to this place of rich loam and wet forests, more than she had ever belonged to the desiccated plains of her grandfather’s people.
Rishona was still at one with her mother, Tamara, when terror overtook them, when brutality invaded the once quiet place that was Tamara’s womb. But Rishona had refused to die with her mother. She had fought and pushed, begged and pleaded, until Tamara used her last breath to force her daughter into a ruthless world. The babe Rishona had landed hard on wet leaves, ears ringing with the last agonized cries of her mother. Cold air had rushed into her lungs, bringing with it the smell of blood and sweat, of rotting earth and brackish water.
Even among the Syrnte, it was rare to remember one’s day of birth, but Rishona knew it was her own wails that brought the forester out of the woods. When the man wrapped the orphaned babe in his cloak, the boy Tahmir had appeared as if out of nowhere, eyes wide with shock, lips trembling in apprehension.
“You’re to take care of your sister now.” The forester had placed her in Tahmir’s arms. “She’s to depend on you.”
Ever since that day, Rishona had deferred to Tahmir, to his plans and judgement, to his caution and courage. And after all these years of pursuing a dream of justice, what had they achieved? Nothing.
“You spared me!” she cried to the heavens. “When assassins drove their knives into my mother’s belly, you spared me. For what purpose, if not this?”
A whisper sounded beneath Rishona’s knees. Sinister and primal, it rose from deep within the earth, like the hiss of a thousand snakes.
Have the Gods abandoned you, Rishona of Moisehén?
Rishona’s breath stilled. Her heartbeat slowed. She knew this call well. She had heard it often in her drea
ms. With trembling hands, she pressed her palms against the earth.
Your destiny is not lost. Avenge him. Avenge them all.
Closing her eyes, the Syrnte princess summoned the Ones That Speak for guidance. They hung back, reluctant to shape the future under the brutal swirl of the present. In their silence, she found only remorse. The excruciating emptiness of her brother’s death, the relentless shame of her own failure.
Rishona choked back a sob and wiped the tears from her face. Rising to her feet, she retrieved a crossbow and sent her gelding deep into the forest. Then she turned toward the hill where Tzeremond held Eolyn. With cold determination, she chose a path to its summit.
The tether seared Eolyn’s throat as Tzeremond whipped it away. She crumpled to the ground, gulping air between bitter sobs. Pain clawed at her ribs, like a beast tearing her apart from the inside. She cursed the Gods for not letting her die as a child, for leading her to Ghemena, and then to Mage Corey. Most of all, she cursed them for delivering her to Akmael.
Tzeremond circled her. The ominous chant of his mages continued. Churning clouds blocked out the sun. Thunder sounded overhead.
“We defeated an entire army of your kind,” Tzeremond said. “It was irresponsible of Ghemena to let you believe you could confront us alone.”
Eolyn clung to the earth, seeking a comfort that could not be found in the cool and fragrant grass. Just over the pale green blades she saw the crystal glitter of her staff, a useless tool that had brought her nowhere. She was only a pawn in the end, a toy used by the Gods to finish what Kedehen had begun.
She shut her eyes against the truth, and heard an impossible sound: the laughter of a young girl. A blur of motion emerged from the trees and ran toward her. A child knelt and peered at the fallen maga. Dark red curls framed her round face. Her earth brown eyes sparked with curiosity.
I think it would be better to die with a little magic in me, she confided, than to die without any magic at all.
Eolyn managed a smile, and the girl faded. Images of the South Woods returned to her, of twisting corridors and endless adventures. She heard the trees and the animals, felt the warm embrace of Ghemena. She remembered the first time Achim ran with her into the cold river, and all the magic they discovered together, before the Gods set them on different paths, before fate goaded them into war.
Drawing air into her lungs, she anchored her spirit deep into the earth. She felt water flow through her veins and stoked the fires of her heart. When all the elements illuminated her interior, Eolyn rose to face her adversary. Calling her staff, she drove it into the ground and let the long forbidden curse burn over her tongue.
Maehechnam arrat saufini
Ehemkaht neurai!
Lightning shot down from the boiling clouds, tunneling into the root of her staff and crackling up its length. White fire whipped through Eolyn, straining her limbs and threatening to explode inside of her. Bursting from the crystal capped head, the bolt smashed Tzeremond into the ground. The wizard cried out, limbs flailing, and then lay motionless.
Eolyn drew a ragged breath. Her body ached and her ears rang. Her hands felt raw and blistered, but she was alive.
Yet so was he.
Tzeremond coughed and rolled onto his side. Trembling violently, he pushed himself to his knees, wheezing and clutching his stomach. His robes were scorched and his hands blackened. His face was chalky gray, but rigid with determination.
He reached for his staff and steadied himself against it. He did not stand, but pinned Eolyn with his amber eyes and lifted one shaking arm toward her. Extending his boney fingers, he cried out:
Saenau
Revoerit
Nefau
The ground lurched beneath Eolyn. Her staff slipped like quicksilver from her hands.
A frigid wind spread through her like a tumor, drying the blood in her veins and leaving them hollow. Desperately she tried to invoke a counter spell, but the elements deserted her. The earth crumbled into a vortex and sucked the churning black clouds toward its core. A current was dragging her down, and she found nothing to grasp that could stop her fall. Dirt clogged her throat, rocks battered her limbs. The weight of the mountain fell upon her and consumed her in darkness.
Chapter Forty-Two
Abyss
Akmael wrenched his blade free from the earth next to Ernan’s neck. He stood over the rebel leader, one hand gripping his axe, the other clenched in fury.
Gods take her! What has she done to me?
No King of Vortingen could suffer such a man to live. Yet in the moment Akmael’s weapon descended, he had seen Eolyn’s face and heard her lament. He had hesitated, and his blade missed its mark.
For what?
So Kaie’s son could drag himself off this wretched field and foment another insurrection? Ernan could not be spared. Not even for her.
Akmael lifted his axe once more, but a tremor passed through the earth and threw him off balance. He felt a part of his soul tearing away. His gaze snapped toward the southern ridge. Lightning wrapped a fine luminous net around roiling clouds that swirled and descended in a sharp funnel toward the heart of the mountain.
Eolyn!
Around him, the battle was fast drawing to a close. Rebels not yet slain were fleeing into the woods under the second charge of his men. Akmael seized the bridle of the nearest mounted knight. “Your horse!”
The man obeyed.
Taking the knight’s long sword as well, Akmael leaped upon the animal and spurred it forward, cursing fallen bodies and discarded weapons that obstructed his path.
By the time he arrived at the summit, the storm had vanished and the sun warmed the grass once again. Baedon and two other High Mages attended Tzeremond, who sagged against his staff. Eolyn lay lifeless on the ground.
Akmael’s heart spasmed as he dismounted and knelt beside her. There was no breath upon her lips, no pulse beneath her skin. An unnatural chill had overtaken her, deeper and more ominous than the simple cold of death.
“What happened here?” he demanded.
“We have succeeded, my Lord King.” Baedon responded with a deep bow. “Albeit at great cost. Master Tzeremond has suffered a terrible curse—”
“Succeeded at what?”
“Why, my Lord King.” Baedon sent a confused look toward the wizard. “Your orders were clear.”
Tzeremond lifted a trembling hand to quiet the mage. His face was ashen, but his eyes glowed with relief. “We have cleansed her of her magic, in this world and the next.”
His words struck harder than any weapon. Akmael’s eyes stung with the impact. When he found his voice, it was hoarse. “Cleansed her?”
“Ahmad-dur,” Baedon said. “We invoked Ahmad-dur.”
“Against this woman?” Akmael bellowed. “For the love of the Gods! She was a maga, not a monster!”
Tzeremond subdued a rattling cough. “It was the only way to finish them, once and for all.”
With a furious roar, Akmael charged them. He severed the neck of one mage and drove his blade through the gut of another. Only Baedon escaped, taking the form of Raven and soaring out of reach. Akmael let him go and thrust the point of his bloodied sword under Tzeremond’s chin. “You dare disobey me?”
“You think I am afraid of death?” Tzeremond rasped. “I, who served the Gods faithfully all my life? I, who brought magic to the line of Vortingen? I do not fear death! I fear the wrath of Dragon should I prove weak against the whims of my misguided student!”
Akmael drew back his weapon and swung, but his sword was deflected by another blade. The clash of metal sent a shower of sparks into Tzeremond’s face. The King’s wrath turned to surprise when he recognized the man who had crossed swords with him. “Drostan?”
“Pardon me, my Lord King.” The knight’s voice was steady, his gaze resolute. “Tzeremond can do no more harm as he is, but if you slay him now, he may be waiting for you, where she has gone.”
Air returned to Akmael’s lungs, like the sharp breath of
a winter morning. He stepped back and turned to where Eolyn lay.
“What…What are you saying?” Tzeremond’s voice shook. “Drostan, this thing you propose…It is madness!”
“It’s been done before,” Akmael murmured.
By the wizard Tyrendel, and Master Eranon, among others. Akmael had memorized all the legends of descent after his mother’s death, desperate to learn how to enter the Underworld and return with his spirit intact, hopeful he might one day find his mother and bring her home. That boyhood dream had long since faded, but perhaps those studies would serve him now.
Akmael drove his sword into the earth and began stripping off his breast plate.
“My Lord King!” Tzeremond cried. “The dead must not be brought back!”
“She’s not dead,” Akmael replied. “Not yet.”
“But she is lost to this world! The curse of Ahmad-dur cannot be reversed.”
Akmael knelt beside Eolyn. A frost had set upon her lips and lashes. A bluish sheen had spread beneath her skin. The chill of her fingers was like a knife through his heart. Eolyn’s body now served as nothing more than an anchor for her spirit, tethered to the realm of the living and then cast into the Underworld. Thinking she was dead, the maga would try to cross to the Afterlife, but the tether would hold her back, trapping her among the Lost Souls.
“You will not find your way back!” Tzeremond pleaded. “Such skills vanished with the masters of old! You will fall prey to the Lost Souls, or be devoured by Naether Demons. They will destroy you, my Lord King, and with you the line of Vortingen. You cannot abandon our people!”
“Silence him, Drostan.” Akmael kept his eyes fixed on Eolyn. For the first time, he realized how the mere knowledge of her existence had sustained him, whether they were together or apart, whether they stood as friends or enemies. He could not lose her. Not like this.
Opening his belt, Akmael withdrew all the winter sage he had.
Enough to guide a soul to the other side, but not sufficient to bring one back.
Spying Eolyn’s purse, he reached toward it and then hesitated. The traditions of Moisehén forbade one mage to violate the medicine belt of another.
Eolyn Page 31
