Many years. Over a decade, she answered, her mindvoice so weak now I barely heard it. She was losing valuable energy. I’m being harvested.
“For what?” I wondered fearfully.
My gift, she answered painfully. Please kill me.
I knew then that she couldn’t speak anymore. Her eyes closed and her long neck sunk towards the floor as it dangled off the edge of the gurney.
Kieran turned to the man. “Alvira did this,” he stated. “How often does she come here? And what happens with the product?”
“My Lady’s Lurah has been taken every six weeks, a very little each time. It is then placed into bottles and the ice woman takes it away.” Said the little man; now sitting in a chair opposite the gurney, staring off at nothing. “My lady is dying. She’s been dying from the beginning. So many enchantments… she wants to die, but I can’t do it.” He stopped speaking properly, like his sentences weren’t finished, “Vowed. Nearly all harvested. Lynk’s running out.”
It seemed that the man had gone a little crazy, but then again, who wouldn’t under his circumstances? I realised he kept saying ‘my Lady’. So she must have been an important Phoenix; this was her devoted servant.
Kieran picked up his Gaborah blade and held it uncertainly in his right hand. He looked at me, “I can feel her pain. It’s been there for a long time. I think it’s about time we freed her of it.”
I nodded slowly, hearing the last thing she said in a low but peaceful mindvoice. She said two words: Thank you.
Then Kieran’s blade came down, piercing precisely through her side and into her heart. I held my breath and watched sadly as she died. When Phoenix die they return to their human form. That’s what happened to her. Her remaining wing gradually morphed back inside her body and arms grew underneath. I saw her skin was luminously pale and flecked with delicate golden freckles when her feathers shot back into her adaptable flesh.
As her neck shortened and her face transformed, I staggered backwards in a sudden absolute terror. Kieran caught me confusedly as I fell in my struggle to get away, away from the body, the fear; the truth.
That face was identical to my mothers. The same small defined features, wide set eyes framed with incredibly long bottom eyelashes which brushed her high cheekbones. Her face was exactly the same. Except my mother had died years ago back in England; I’d watched it happen.
It was the two small holes in the woman’s ears that convinced that me this wasn’t my mother; I knew for a fact my mother never had her ears pierced as she had a phobia of needles. So if my mother was still dead, that meant she must have had a twin sister. It meant I’d had an Aunt.
A memory flashed across my vision. It was in the Tower in Ephizon, when I’d seen a girl impersonating who I thought was my mother; using a gift Briseis called Reon’ju. The girl had said then, as my mother, or aunt I suppose, that she’d be my second downfall.
Then it dawned on me.
If my Aunt was being harvested for her gift, then her gift had to be Chyun’ju; the same as me. And if her Lurah was the source of her power, that’s what Lynk had been taking from her; using Alvira’s immoral services. Was it possible to use somebody else’s Lurah to make yourself gifted? Is that how he mysteriously became gifted half way through his life; even though it’s something you’re normally born with? He’d stolen the gift from another and somehow used it to make himself powerful. He’d stolen it from my Aunt.
Then a second realisation hit.
He was running out of it; her Lurah, the source of his power, because she was dying. And now that she was dead, he wouldn’t be able to use Chyun’ju anymore, unless he found a new gifted Lurah to harvest and use. And there was only one other person who possessed such a gift.
Me.
All those years Lynk had spent training me to become his weapon had failed because I hated him and therefore wasn’t under his control. I wouldn’t willingly use my gift to help him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still use my gift. All my measurements and those calculations I’d discovered in his belongings weren’t just coincidental; he was trying to see how long my Lurah would last, and if I was fit and powerful enough to be harvested.
He was going to do to me what he did to her.
My second downfall was that now we’d killed my Aunt; I was next.
Chapter Thirty One
I turned to Kieran shakily. “That’s my Aunt.” I pointed to her dead body, still butchered in a gruesome line down her spinal column.
“How do you know?” he asked warily.
“She’s identical to my mother,” I answered. “I never told you this but when I went into the Ephizon Tower there was a girl there, who was gifted with Reon’ju. I saw my mother and she told me that she’d be my second downfall. Only it wasn’t my mother though, it was my aunt.”
Kieran thought for a moment, then questioned. “Your second downfall?”
I remembered instantly what the girl had said; the words had haunted me ever since. “She’d said ‘Your first will follow you even into the afterlife. You are already marked with the fate of the fallen’.” I shook my head, that didn’t matter right now. I didn’t understand what it meant anyway. I continued exasperatedly, “Don’t you see what this means? Lynk has been harvesting my Aunt’s Lurah for her gift; a gift that has to be Chyun’ju.”
His quick mind immediately clicked into comprehension. “That’s how he obtained his gift,” he muttered. Then the second realisation hit and his eyes went wide with shocked horror. “He’s running out of the Lurah,” Kieran realised. “That must be what the Daemons and Briseis came back for. And we just killed his last supply,” he turned to me. “He’ll want you next.”
I nodded shakily, having already gathered that.
“He knew the moment I came here that I wouldn’t willingly serve him, and I’m getting too powerful to be forced to do so,” I whispered fearfully. “So he’ll use me the only way he can.”
I thought for a moment; my mind travelling back to my time in Lynk’s caves. For three, rather confusing and unclear days, I had been drugged by those guards and a supposed healer. When I’d awoken I’d felt ill and weak, and I’d gained a painful scar on the back of my neck; along my spinal cord.
Could it be that Lynk had already practiced harvesting me? Could it be that a little of my gift had already been stolen? It would certainly explain why I thought my voice was weaker when I used Chyun’ju; why I struggled to put Kieran to sleep last night and Chara to sleep a few minutes ago.
“If he’s after you then you better run,” said a quiet voice behind me. “I know he’s coming soon.”
I turned around and saw the peculiar little man. He was still sat in his chair but he’d mysteriously conjured up a clear crystal tube from somewhere. Inside it was a twirling string of golden-white light.
“This was what was taken last time the ice woman came,” he explained. “I was supposed to give it to another girl but she never turned up.” As he spoke his voice was getting progressively strained and weak. “Take it.”
Just as I reached out my hand to take the tube I heard a strange noise filtering down from the surface above us. I frowned, grasping the tube tightly; it sounded like a stampede of wildebeest on the savannah. A small tremor shook the floor underneath me. I looked around, noticing the bottles quiver too. I glanced back to the little man.
“Does that usually happen?” I asked him, suddenly realising that his eyes had closed and he’d gone bizarrely immobile; he wasn’t even breathing.
“He’s dead,” Kieran stated.
“What?”
“You know,” he elaborated arrogantly. “He’s stopped existing.”
“I know,” I glowered. “I mean, how come he just died?”
He sighed when he saw my expression, “I bet he was cursed to die when she did. That’s why he couldn’t kill her himself.”
The sound of thousands of feet stampeding still sounded above. I swear it was getting louder. “What do you think that is?” I a
sked. Another tremor, this one stronger and louder, shook the room around us. I grabbed the table for support until the motion subsided; and my empty stomach refrained from sloshing nauseously. I glanced at Kieran in concerned puzzlement.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Kieran answered my question, marching in the direction Jayson, Nik and Chara had gone earlier.
I followed him quickly, proclaiming; “We can’t just leave them!”
Kieran glanced uninterestedly at the two bodies and then shrugged. “It doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere anytime soon.”
With one last swift glance at my aunt and her servant I went after him.
We came to a set of stairs which we followed for what seemed like a very long time, until we finally arrived at a brick wall. Kieran shoved it hard and, surprisingly, it swung back. It opened into the back gardens of the Palace; the highest point on the east side of the valley. As I stood the door swung back again; practically disappearing. No one would’ve ever noticed it.
The sound was louder up here, dramatically increasing volume, and as I looked towards the direction of the noise Kieran took a deep breath. “The wards are down,” he said slowly, disbelievingly. “That’s what that noise is. The vibrations are from the failing wards.”
“How do you know?” I asked, bewildered.
“The North Arch beacon isn’t lit,” he answered. “Look.” He pointed. I peered through my eyelashes, wishing my night vision would hurry up and adjust to the darkness, and eventually spotted what he meant.
“What does this mean?” I wondered fearfully.
“It means that someone is going to, or already has, invaded the city,” he answered coldly.
“It’s Lynk. He’s coming.” I realised.
“I need to go,” Kieran said. “They’ll need as many warriors as possible for when they arrive. I imagine he’ll bring his entire half breed army.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said. It wasn’t a request, but merely a statement of fact; there was no way he was leaving me behind. It occurred to me then that I was still holding the tube containing the last of my aunt’s Lurah –I wish I’d known her name. I quickly put it in my pocket.
“How did I know you were going to say that?” Kieran muttered, glancing at me. “Is there any point arguing?”
“Nope.”
“Right, let’s go.”
“Not so fast,” A deep, unforgettable voice said behind me.
I jumped, startled at the unanticipated voice. I turned around and to my horror saw that Lynk was stood behind me, accompanied by several half breeds. There were at least seven of them, all coated in black metal armour and accessorised with glinting weapons. I shuddered at the sight; unconsciously stepping closer to Kieran.
“I guess you must have found Farrah,” Lynk commented, nodding sharply at the barely-visible brick door in the wall behind us. “How did she look?” Lynk wondered curiously, his light gold eyes deceitfully innocent.
Anger overwhelmed me when I realised that he was talking about my Aunt. “Like she’d been butchered, actually,” I glared at him.
“I haven’t seen her in a while,” Lynk mused thoughtfully, casually. “I had hoped my Daemons would bring her to me; but they’re quite stupid and have an annoying habit of getting caught by the city guards.”
“Yes I noticed,” I replied. “There’s one in the Tower now.”
“Not anymore,” Lynk shrugged. “Briseis has already freed Tuka.”
I stared at him in shock. That meant that Briseis had been in the Tower. Then I kicked myself mentally; of course some of Lynk’s alliances have been in there; otherwise how else could they have broken the wards? I deliberately didn’t show any emotion other than glaring hatred as I looked at Lynk. He was still the same; ageless, indomitable. Terrifying.
“Then why are you here?” I demanded.
“To visit an old friend,” he smiled, flashing his sharp teeth.
“If you mean Farrah then you’re out of luck,” I glared at him bravely. “She is dead. We did the honourable thing and allowed her to die in peace. What someone should have done a long time ago.”
His eyes widened the tiniest bit, but he remained calm. “Then you’ve done a very foolish thing,” Lynk said, facing me with a cutting indifference. “I thought you were a clever girl, Ruby; smart enough to realise where I could get another, suitably gifted, Lurah from.”
I swallowed nervously, “You wouldn’t do that to me.”
“I already have,” he stated vindictively.
I shuddered with disgust, “What did you do with it?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Kieran snarled beside me. “He ate it.”
The thought repulsed me, but not as much as when Lynk nodded at Kieran. “Clever boy,” he smirked. “A lot more intelligent than your Father.”
“That’s not really much of a compliment,” Kieran glowered.
“No,” Lynk agreed, and then turned to me. “I hope you took the last vial from Farrah. I’d hate to have it wasted; especially as it would mean cutting you up sooner.”
“Over my cold dead body will you touch her,” Kieran warned, altruistically stepping in front of me; shielding my body with his own.
Lynk smirked at that; then seemingly thought about something. After a moment he smiled a cruel taunting smile. That same deadly innocence still reflected in his eyes as he suggested, “You can run if you like. I won’t chase you; though my army might. They’ll be attacking the city any moment now. Oh look!” he pointed abruptly, his face morbidly thrilled. “They already are.”
I looked down the valley towards the centre of the city. After a moment I saw what Lynk meant and gaped in horror. Half breeds were everywhere, attacking the streets of Forenna from above and below. I could just make out screaming with my sharp hearing, and I could see fights breaking out between the monsters and the unsuspecting civilians.
I turned back to Lynk, trying to ignore the sight below. “So you’re going to let us leave?” I asked suspiciously.
“No,” Lynk said. “I’m going to count to three, and then send my Daemons after you. It’s your choice if you run or not.”
“And what if we don’t?” Kieran demanded.
“You’ll see,” Lynk smiled.
I froze where I stood, glancing fearfully at Kieran as Lynk began counting down. We shared a brief, significant glance before we sprinted off in a particular direction. I raced as fast as I could, desperately clutching the vial of Lurah in my pocket, as we fled the city.
I didn’t know why, but the Daemons weren’t following us.
Or at least that was what I thought.
We stopped when we reached the forest at the foot of a neighbouring mountain. I was gasping frantically as I asked, “Where are we going?”
“We need to get you out of here,” Kieran answered. “Lynk might be toying with us a bit now, but he wouldn’t seriously let you go. Any minute his monsters will be here” He paused momentarily, listening attentively, and then muttered, “Like clockwork.”
Almost immediately I heard something snap. I glanced around anxiously for the source, but before I had chance to take anything in something charged at me; instantly flinging me to the ground and onto my back. I heard it growling in my ears as I struggled to get up; but its weight was pressing me down. I could feel the monster’s claws tearing at the skin of my neck and scratches of pain sharpened my mind, defining my vision.
Then I heard the half breed scream, a low roar in my ear, and saw Kieran in front of me, holding his arm out to pull me from underneath the dead, heavy monster. I took his hand and he heaved me up, however I then saw another half breed approaching us from behind Kieran.
“Kieran! Look out,” I warned and he turned.
Kieran immediately fought the creature. He swung at it with his blade, flicking the metal around his wrists and lunging at the tall monster which growled; showing rows of sharp blood-stained teeth. Kieran moved with a practiced accuracy. He was a skilled warrior.
<
br /> I on the other hand, was not. Once I was free of the heavy carcass crushing me, I realised that I had one tiny knife and no hope. If it wasn’t for Kieran at my side I probably would have died in the first thirty seconds of this terrifying attack. All around me blood was being spilled –unfortunately including mine and Kieran’s- and agonised screams were being unleashed.
Suddenly we were outnumbered ten to one; our only chance was to run.
So we ran. We ran through the trees as the monsters chased and attacked us. Continuously we had to fight them off, but we were tiring quickly; our reactions becoming slower. I felt it when Kieran sliced open his arm, but we continued on; in the vague hope that we could escape their grasp.
Another monster struck me with its claws, hissing aggressively. When I saw another one heading our way my eyes went wide in sudden terror. Kieran was fighting better than he ever had before, but against this many half breeds we were both as good as dead. We were overwhelmed.
Energy was pounding in my back, almost painfully, and it suddenly occurred to me why I hadn’t thought of evoking fire. So I quickly sparked a flame and made it triple in size, expanding as large as a football. Once it was big enough I launched it hard at the nearest creature. It hit it with a shocking impact, sending the beast flying backwards with a scream.
Kieran looked at me in surprise, “Can you do that again?”
I nodded, though exhaustion was already gripping me. The second fireball wasn’t as large as the first, but I threw it with force. Two down.
As the minutes continued and more and more monsters came, destroying everything in their path, I knew that Kieran and I wouldn’t have long before we were overpowered. I fell frequently, leaving a trail of blood that stained the snow behind me. The half breed’s screams pierced my ears over the sound of clashing metal; the smell of their sweat tarnished the air.
Kieran stabbed one thrashing monster; however a second pounced on his back while a third attacked me. I slashed desperately at the half breeds wing membrane; tearing it like paper. I pulled out the knife and stabbed its side, but it jumped, using its wings for balance as it dug its deadly claws into my shoulders; slicing open the soft flesh.
Risen (The Firebird Trilogy Book 2) Page 38
