The Crown of Stones: Magic-Scars

by C. L. Schneider

  Draken’s smile blurred in and out. He lifted his blade. “Hold still, little bug.” With a flick of his wrist, he made a quick slice down the front of my thigh. He went to make another, and I raised my other leg and kicked him back.

  Head pounding, I secured my weapons and crawled to my feet. “If you’re trying to even the odds, Your Grace, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

  Draken addressed his guard. “Take the Rellan cub downstairs. Boil him alive.”

  “No!” I spun to face Liel, who was struggling weakly in his captor’s hold. “He doesn’t have to die,” I said, looking back at Draken. “He’s just a kid.”

  “You should have thought of that before you asked him to turn traitor. But, you’re right. He doesn’t have to die.” Draken waived his hand toward the guard. “Belay that last part. Fetch a physician, a Shinree healer—I don’t care. Just keep the child alive. Show him some of our,” he paused to smile, “hospitality. I’ll join you when I’m done here.”

  As the man steered Liel toward the door, I stepped forward to intervene.

  “Go ahead, Troy,” Draken said. “Run after the boy. It will give me a chance to spend some time alone with my wife.”

  I stopped. “Neela hasn’t done anything, Draken. Leave her out of it.”

  “Oh, it’s too late for that. From the looks of it she’s in this up to her lovely, black neck. Which, I will snap the moment you turn your back. But, go if you must. If you’ve overcome Reth’s spell enough to abandon Neela then, by all means. Run along. We’ll be fine here.”

  I glanced at Neela. Being smart enough to back up from the fight, she was at the edge of the chamber, near the balcony doors. Liel was on the complete opposite side of the room. Draken and I were smack in the middle. If I went for Liel, by the time I’d dealt with the guards, Neela could be dead. If went for her, while I contended with Draken, the guards would take Liel away.

  They could do a lot to him in the time it would take for me to find him again—if I was even in a position to do so. With Draken leveraging Neela against me, there was no guarantee the outcome would be in my favor. In fact, my record of staying strong where Neela was concerned stunk. That alone made letting Liel out of my sight as good as condemning him. And then there’s the crown. I couldn’t allow it to remain in Draken’s hands. They were too entwined with my father’s.

  Reaching the door, Liel tapped into some desperate, hidden well of strength and grabbed on. His fingers dug into the frame and the blood raced out faster. That’s the point, I thought, realizing Liel wasn’t trying to escape. He was trying to die.

  I wasn’t the only one that knew what he was facing if he left the room alive. He would be taken down stairs, healed and tortured by the guards, again and again, for as long as it amused them. How can I leave him to that?

  I watched Liel’s fingers slipping. I thought of the pool and what I could cast. Then I thought of Dolan and the men I’d set free. With the crown and the shard, and far more hornblende here than what was in the mines—and the fierce, impotent rage rising in me—it would be Kael all over again. I couldn’t risk it. And Liel knew it. Just as I knew he wouldn’t want me harming anyone to save him.

  Looking at me, wearing the most resigned and understanding expression, Liel nodded, as if to say: I’m ready.

  I nodded back. I had no choice; I promised. But as Liel was so calmly and bravely asking me to kill him, I had trouble seeing the daring, young man he’d become. I saw the boy I met in the woods outside of Kael with a fresh face and a mountain of hair. And I wondered how such a brief, transitory moment in my life could have led to such a singularly painful one now. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I know,” Liel panted at me. “Her name…do you remember?”

  “Bethanee. I’ll make sure she knows you were brave.”

  “Thank you…My Lord.”

  “Didn’t I tell you not to call me that?”

  Liel smiled. He lost his grip on the door.

  I drew back and pitched the axe into the center of his head.

  Turning, I rushed a startled Draken. At the last second, he dived out of the way of my blade and into the pool. Momentum took me over it. I landed on the other side, narrowly avoiding the fleeing swan. I had a second to decide: stay and deal with Draken, or get Neela and the crown to safety.

  I grabbed Liel’s pack. I seized Neela’s arm and ran with her out to the balcony. Paying no attention to her protests, I lifted the flailing Queen up on top of the stone wall. Hoisting myself onto the thin ledge beside her, I pulled Neela into my arms. I sent out a call to whatever stones were within reach and jumped.

  THIRTY EIGHT

  The stale water fled my lungs in a painful rush. Rolling onto my back, I didn’t move until the coughing stopped. Then I lifted a shaky hand and shoved the sopping hair out of my face. The circle of sun shining down was annoyingly bright. I moved to block it and water cascaded off my arm. My clothes were soaked clean through. Beneath me was a bed of wet earth and squishy, damp moss. Circling my aching head was an abundance of flowering bushes and dead fish. The combined smell, a cloying, rotting sort of odor, was not pleasant.

  I remembered the water rushing up. Hitting the surface of the moat, I opened the door, and sank into it. But to where?

  Gods, this is getting old.

  I’d been creating doors (and a lot of other spells recently) with the ancient practice of thought-casting. Erudite were believed to possess a natural ability for throwing magic around without the focusing tool of an actual spell. In my case, I wasn’t sure it was so natural. I’d set my sights firmly on the camp. And this wasn’t it.

  The air wasn’t heavy and hot. The green wasn’t dull and mud-splattered. It was vibrant. Instead of thorns and scrub, fat, round bushes bursting with blossoms of pink, yellow, orange, and red dotted the ground. An assortment of trees reached up toward the sun. Some were healthy, spindly saplings. Others were tall and sturdy with great, round trunks. Gnarled vines and a shimmering, wet layer of vivid green decorated the bottom half of the wide, towering rock walls. There was no ceiling, only sky with a bit of rocky edge around it.

  I was lying at the bottom of a large, open grotto, and the top was a long ways up.

  Remembering I wasn’t alone, I lifted onto my elbows and called out. “Neela!”

  I waited for an answer. I was sure she’d been in my arms when we hit the water.

  She came through. I know she did.

  “Neela!” Still getting nothing, I got up to search, and pain sped through my right leg. “Son of a…” Lowering myself back down, I grabbed the aching limb and inspected the wound. The cut hadn’t been overly deep when Draken gave it to me. Crashing into the filthy moat and slamming into the floor of the grotto, however, hadn’t done it any favors. Torn wider and caked with bits of dirt and leaves, a fair amount of blood was oozing steadily out from the exposed meat in the middle.

  Staring at it annoyed me. It shouldn’t, I thought. I hadn’t tried to heal myself when I opened the door. But I hadn’t when I cast on the bridge at the Gullet either. The chain burns on my hands had simply disappeared. It had been happening a lot lately; me being so out of control that I wasn’t aware what I was casting. It wasn’t something I normally strived for. At the moment, though, with a nasty gouge in my leg, an arrow hole in my arm, contusions on my face, and every part of me sore from the landing; I wouldn’t have minded a little unexplained, accidental healing.

  I didn’t see my sword, but Liel’s pack was lying in a bush about three feet away. I eyed it a second or two, telling myself it was nothing but a leather bag. It didn’t represent anything. It didn’t have to trigger anything. But I was fooling myself. And not all that well. That last moment when my axe bit into his skull—the sound it made and the weight I felt—was burned into me forever. Gods, Liel...

  He was just a boy.

  Clearing the tightness from my throat, I pushed the image away. I leaned over and hauled the bag closer. Dumping the contents, an empty
wineskin, a couple of mushy biscuits, a coil of rope, and the Crown of Stones tumbled onto the thick grass. The flint, the hunting knife, the blanket, and the bandages, didn’t. “Damn it.”

  The gods were not in a giving mood today.

  I flung the pack down and pulled my drenched shirt off over my head. I rolled the fabric and twisted it in my hands, ringing the water out over the wound. It wasn’t exactly clean, but it was all I had. Ripping the sleeves off, I tied one around my leg and the other around my arm. Then I pushed to my feet and hopped around the high foliage.

  There was something oddly familiar about the place. While I was sure I’d never been here before, someone else certainly had. Mixed in amongst the greenery, the tops of large rectangular slabs and other incomplete stone structures poked up through the weeds. Remnants of a rusty metal staircase clung precariously to one wall. Other walls boasted row upon row of timeworn drawings and runes. Scratched ages ago into the stone, the markings were so badly faded I almost didn’t realize they were Shinree.

  I looked around again. I wasn’t anywhere near the old empire. My surroundings were too fertile for the desert and too warm for the mountains of Langor. The rock formations and foliage were more like what was found in…

  I drew a quick breath. Kael.

  That was why it felt familiar. I was in the cave Liel found, the cave from the first eldring’s memories. It must have been on my mind when I opened the door.

  There was a rustle. I trailed the series of coughs that followed and found Neela lying on her stomach atop a patch of purple wildflowers. My leg protested painfully as I knelt down beside her. It complained even more when I helped her up. “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. What happened? Where are we?”

  My answer wouldn’t sit well, so I put it off. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” Neela fussed a moment with her dressing gown. The mud-soaked blue silk was torn and clinging to her body. Strands of water grass were stuck to her curls. Shivering, Neela wrapped her arms around herself. She nodded at the bandage on my leg. “How is it?”

  “Not great.”

  “Will you live?”

  “I’m planning on it.”

  “Good.” She raised a hand and slapped me.

  My face already sore, I shouted at her. “What the hell?”

  “I told you I had to stay. You refused to listen.” Neela’s dirty chin lifted. “I am Queen. My word is to be obeyed.”

  “Maybe if your word made sense,” I muttered, rubbing my stinging cheek.

  “Draken had no intention of killing me. He was trying to rattle you. As usual, you let him.” Shaking her head, her soggy curls flew back and forth; sprinkling me. “What you did to Liel, choosing me over him—Ian…how could you?”

  “It wasn’t like that.” But she’d put my mind on the moment again and I couldn’t help thinking: Is that what I did?

  Neela’s deceit had landed me in prison. Nothing that happened between us had been based in reality. Yet what I’d felt for her, I’d felt keenly. My desire, my obsession, had been profound. But neither had afflicted me when I saw her in Langor. And neither influenced the decision I made about Liel. That wasn’t done out of lust or some twisted, manic need. It was made with logic and compassion. “I made a promise,” I said.

  “Regardless. Bringing me with you was a mistake. It was stupid and reckless.”

  “That seems to be the effect you have on me, Your Grace.”

  Not expecting that, Neela’s cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry, Ian.”

  “Forget it.”

  “I can’t. It wasn’t fair that Jem Reth forced you to love me.”

  “I didn’t love you. What I felt back then was sick and painful.”

  Her body tensed, like I’d insulted her. “And now?”

  “I still don’t love you. But…” I stared at her; grateful I could do so and not lose my mind. I wasn’t gripped with frantic passion. I could think clearly. Between Jarryd’s memories and my own experiences, I knew the real Neela Arcana now. She wasn’t the woman in my dreams. But that woman hadn’t gone away. She was still very much a part of me. “If I called up the memories, if I surrendered to them…I think I could drown in you.” I turned my back. I felt Neela’s eyes, but there was nothing more to be said so I forced my mind down other paths.

  Looking for a way out as I explored, I eliminated the stairs quickly. Most of the rungs were missing and I had my doubts what was left would hold our weight. There were no crevices or offshoots, and the flat mossy walls weren’t made for climbing. The only way out of the grotto was if I made another door. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Shadowing me, Neela asked, “Can you heal yourself?”

  “Not deliberately.” I glanced at her. “Unless you feel like sharing?”

  Understanding I meant the binding spell, she took a step back. “You should sit down then and rest.”

  “Sure, I’ll sit. You figure out how to get us out of here.”

  “Perhaps I can, if you tell me where ‘here’ is.”

  “Kael. My doors don’t always hit the mark.”

  “I should say so. But why this cave? Have you been here before?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, distracted, as I ran my hands along the edge of one of the large, stone blocks. There were score marks on the surface. The grooves near the top of one side were made by countless hard succinct hits to the stone. Flanking them were hollows, sculpted round and deep like bowls. The depressions, noticeably darker than the rest of the granite, had once held so much blood that even now, centuries later, the stains persisted. “Look here.” I pointed at four large, circular depressions in the ground. The indentations bordered the pair of altars. The second I stepped in one, I knew exactly what caused them. “This is where the columns stood. The ones from Guidon’s castle. With that much obsidian power they could have created one hell of a barrier to keep something out.”

  “Or something in.” Neela crouched among the vegetation between the altars. Disturbed wisps of pale, fluffy seed floated around her as she held back a section of plants. “At least your door didn’t deposit us down there.”

  Limping over, I peered past her into a deep pit. Sunlight shone in on about half the sizeable hole, illuminating a pile of aged, bleached bones. I glanced in the other pit and found more of the same.

  “A lot of people died here,” Neela said, moving back from the edge.

  I turned to her. “Do you know something about this place?”

  “How could I? I don’t even know where we are.”

  “Is that the truth?”

  “You think I’m lying?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time. Or the second. Or the third.”

  Neela’s nostrils flared. “I’d forgotten the extent of your gall, Troy. You bring me here, against my will, to this hole—an actual hole, in the ground— with nothing to eat or drink, and no apparent way out, and you’re accusing me of wrong doing?” She let out an angry breath. “You do realize I was no better than a prisoner at Darkhorne myself?”

  My temper stirring, I made my way over to the wall behind the altars. “Tell me, Your Grace,” I said, examining the runes. “Did your cell have a bed with pillows and warm blankets? Did your jailor fill your wardrobe with a rainbow of satin gowns? I’m sure he didn’t want you to be underdressed for all that hard labor you performed.” Neela didn’t offer a response. As a possible reason came to me, I regretted my mocking tone. I also hoped I was wrong. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No more than is within a husband’s right to punish his disobedient wife.”

  I stopped what I was doing and faced her. “You let him treat you like that? You? Rella’s Queen?”

  “I am not Rella’s Queen anymore, Ian. And Langorian marriage has rules. Besides, no one challenges my husband without penalty. Draken is High King.”

  Her defense of his behavior was infuriating. “Are there children?”

  “I gave Draken two sons. Neither liv
ed past a month. Draken blamed me for their deaths, claiming the babes had gotten too much of my father’s weak Rellan blood.”

  “I’m sorry, Neela. Losing a child is—”

  “What would you know of it?” she demanded.

  That wasn’t a question I wanted to answer, so I turned back to the runes.

  Moving on from lettering too faded to decipher, my fingers wandered onto the picture of a large, furry creature. Enveloped in what looked like a beam of light shooting from a circle, the beast had its mouth thrown open in pain. The adjacent picture had the same beam and circle. But instead of an animal it was focused on a man.

  Neela came up close behind me. “I have to go back.”

  “Why? It didn’t help anything,” I said, still studying the pictures. “You married him, slept with him—sold me to him. And he’s still the same murderous bastard.”

  “I didn’t marry Draken because I thought it would change him. I used what I had to solve the conflict at hand, as women in my position have done for all eternity. My mother included.” I made a sound of disagreement, and her temper flared. “Aylagar didn’t love my father, Ian. Marrying Raynan Arcana sealed a valuable alliance between the Arullans and the Rellans. She gave herself to him to see it done.”

  I spun around. “Aylagar would have never surrendered like you did. Not her spirit, her soul. She was a fighter. She never gave up. You are nothing like her.”

  Neela stared a moment. “You don’t like me, do you? Yet, you wanted me as much as you did her.” Her head cocked to the side. “And that makes you angry.”

  “Yes, it makes me angry. It makes me angry I dreamt of you at all. It makes me angry I had to watch Draken butcher you, over and over. But do you want to know what my real problem is, Neela? Do you want to know what really pisses me off? What killed me more than the torture inflicted on both of us in those damn dreams?” Neela started to speak, but whatever she would say would be wrong so I cut her off. “It was his fucking hands on your skin. It was his tongue in your mouth. You can’t imagine the rage I felt when he touched you, the hatred, the jealousy. I was jealous, Neela. Do you know how sick that is? How guilty I feel for wishing I could have let you die on that cave floor? I was there to fight my father for the crown. That should have been my priority. If I’d made sure he was dead, instead of healing you, so many terrible things could have been avoided. So you’ll have to forgive me. But right now, looking at you, I’m having trouble seeing the beautiful woman you are. All I see are the worst parts of me.”