The Bloodheart

by Steve Rzasa

  I have to help her. I have to stop this. Luc asked me so. The cold builds in me. I urge it on, and when I cannot will it any stronger, I cry out in pain and desperation.

  Strathern doesn’t flinch. He strikes Ariya with two quick blows, one to her midsection and one to her throat. She gasps for breath, choking.

  Strathern yanks the dagger from his side and with a savage growl, slits her throat.

  There’s blood everywhere. Ariya stumbles in it. Her wings are stained red. She falls away from the dais.

  The most awful howl I’ve ever heard rends my ears.

  Niall leaps the barricade, shifting into his fox form. He ignores the three musket balls that punch through his arms and chest, and the sword blade that stabs through his leg. He lands amidst the remaining soldiers, right in front of Strathern’s lackey. The man calmly slashes with his sword.

  Niall grabs the blade in his bare hand, snaps it in half as a twig, and with a roar both anguished and outraged, tears the man’s head from its shoulders.

  He’s quick and savage, shredding the men around him to pieces even as he absorbs grievous wounds. Their screams end abruptly.

  Strathern levels his hand at Niall.

  Suddenly the ice is there, pounding at my restraint, clamoring to be freed. I’ve never felt so cold. So controlled. I rise, my veins frozen solid and my heart as cold as the depths of the hardest winter, and unleash a blast of pure blue light and white ice at him.

  A single shard the length of my arm and sharp as a sword’s blade on both edges pierces Strathern’s chest. It cuts clean through, punching out his back and shattering in a spray of shimmering ice on the far wall.

  He stares at me, the red light fading. Color drains from his face. His falls to his knees.

  “It is finished,” I tell him.

  “You … think so? The king has more summoners than you know. I … will not be the last…to come for the Bloodheart.” Strathern collapses on his side. His eyes stare at nothing.

  There’s a sudden stillness in the room. No more fighting. It’s broken only by the sound of Niall’s weeping. He staggers to us, dragging a limp leg sodden with blood. He’s pierced by innumerable wounds, matting his fur. He doesn’t bother reverting into the shape of a man. Instead he prostrates himself over Ariya’s still form. Despite her fatal injury she looks more angelic than ever. He brushes blond hair from her face, and with one massive, clawed hand, eases her eyes closed.

  “It should have been me. It should have been me before her.” Niall cradles her gently to his chest. He rocks on his knees, his tears mingling with the dirt and blood on his face, tracing clean tracks on red and white fur.

  Luc. The lad trusted in me. I failed him. He wanted me to end this. But I could not keep him safe. Vesna, bless her, removes my cloak and wraps Luc in it.

  Niall looks at me. “How do we destroy that thing?”

  “I don’t know.” Yet there’s an answer beckoning, like a loved one waving from the open door of home after a long trip abroad. I step up to the Bloodheart. It pulses red, the white lights long gone, its surface still slick with Luc’s blood. Navio Mons is adrift under my feet, rudderless. Was Strathern lying? Are there really more summoners who would twist this relic to their dark purposes?

  Do I dare risk that?

  “If anything happens, Vesna—” I touch the side of her face. “If I do anything like they did, or become as mad as Strathern, promise you will put your dagger through my heart. You have to.”

  Vesna is crying too. She nods, and presses into me for a kiss.

  Outside the battle rages on. Benath regroups his dragons but the cloudships numbers have grown. Goblins fling themselves in suicidal assaults from the rigging onto the backs of the beasts, and valkiros dive for whatever weak points beneath dragon scales they can find. Half the dragons are nowhere to be seen. Neither are more than twenty ships. The dragons are slowing, their fires weaker and sporadic.

  They will fall.

  “Vesna. I love you.” I kiss her again. “Remember that always.”

  “I love you, Bowen. Do what you must.”

  I release her.

  And reach for the Bloodheart.

  THE THIRTY-SECOND CHAPTER

  ~

  I can see magic.

  It’s everywhere. Around me, and in me. A swirling, rushing current of light and shadow, colors of every sheen, mingling and crashing.

  Silence such as I’ve never experienced embraces me. So… warm. And power. Small wonder Strathern was infatuated by it. I feel—I can do anything. I can envelope the Northamber ships in waves of fire. I can incinerate the valkiros in webs of lightning, and freeze the goblins in a storm of sleet.

  All magic will do my bidding.

  Something draws me from the precipice. The throbbing anger subsides, into a calm and peace that brings to mind the heat of the sun through my window on a winter’s morn. The day breaks through darkness.

  I gasp, and the rage evaporates.

  The Bloodheart pulses as the sun beneath my fingers. Niall and Vesna are silhouettes of their vibrant selves. The bodies of the dead are dark outlines in the riotous background. So much given. So much taken. Gridley. Ariya. Luc.

  My Cassia.

  The first rule of magic is there as a constant curb. The dead cannot be returned to us. They cannot return from whence they’ve gone.

  So why is Luc standing there on the other side of the clear column?

  He looks as whole and happy as the first night I found him in Applemont. Truly, it was he who found me. “You are dead…aren’t you?”

  He nods. “I am. But I’m well.”

  “How can that be?”

  “I’m home. So I can’t come back to you. I can meet, just for a little bit.”

  “What am I to do with the Bloodheart? You asked me to stop this. I tried, but there is so much death and darkness. What can one man do?”

  A new light flares into existence behind him. It pains me to look upon it, yet it invites me in. I feel—vile, yet whole. It glows with a tinge of rainbow colors about the edges.

  It slowly takes the shape of a man. Three men? My vision blurs and warps as I stare.

  “Bowen.” Luc touches the Bloodheart from the other side. “You can see it. Believe in Him. You can end this. Make it stop.”

  He fades away.

  His words echo in my mind. I feel magic within me. It’s leashed and awaiting my command. I grip the Bloodheart with both hands and whisper the words of the ice summoning.

  A terrible cold, more powerful than any I’ve used before, pulses through my hands. Ice immediately enshrouds the Bloodheart. Yet it melts away as fast as it builds.

  Lightning? I let the phrase Strathern uttered pass my lips. Intense bolts crack from my hands, earsplitting thunder accompanying the blasts. The Bloodheart is unscathed.

  My body is exhausted. It feels as if the life is draining out of me, my very soul being drawn out in pieces. I’m doing this wrong. I cannot destroy it.

  I tack sails and use earth summoning against the column that holds the relic. It shivers, shakes but does not budge from its place. Whatever the column is, it throbs with a power that rivals the Bloodheart.

  I open my eyes again and stare in awe at the fields of magic stretching before me and around me in all directions. No matter how I command them, they are not strong enough to rid the skies of this relic. It must be something much more catastrophic.

  Then it hits me. The idea makes me chilled to the core. I reach out through the Bloodheart, reversing its flow of magic, and find what I’m looking for.

  Aethershards.

  The huge ones that hold aloft Navio Mons, the small ones that keep the cloudships of the Northamber fleet flying…they extrude things that look like threads of green light, tethering them to the fields of magic. It is all connected, a tapestry of power unseen by man.

  I know now what must be done.

  The Bloodheart lets me touch them, but there are so many, I cannot select which to handle
and which to not. Some will escape. I push out with my will, praying for strength and begging for forgiveness for what I am about to do.

  I understand now. The Bloodheart was meant to protect the innocent from evil not by exerting magic against magic, but by taking power away from those who misuse it. It amplifies summoning, yes, but it is also a siphon.

  It is the only thing that can make magic cease.

  Finally, the Bloodheart shudders. A red sphere of light explodes from its center, spreading out and expanding as a bubble. It punches through me and ripples across, growing larger and larger. Through the relic I see it expand until it encompasses Navio Mons, the entire isle and all the Northamber ships arrayed in battle against the dragon.

  The Bloodheart is dark. I push with all my might for ice, water, fire, anything but no magic comes. My body feels strange, as if something were emptied. And the relic feels…like metal. No more a source of power or control than the hilt of my sword. It is dead.

  The green threads are severed. Every aethershard within a mile of this room fades from green to a lifeless quartz. Each has no more magic inherent than a lump of sand.

  Luc is there, in my mind’s eye, whether real or imagined I do not know. All he says is, Run.

  Just like that, everything begins to fall.

  ~

  We struggle through the fortress, which is largely abandoned. Anyone we encounter is running away, yelling and searching for escape. The ramps tilt at insane angles. Stones crack and split, raining down debris.

  Niall refuses to leave Ariya’s body. He shields her from blows of rock, the muscles of his fox form bulging, and urges us forward. I lead Vesna, hunting for an exit.

  Where is Sleet?

  Goblins race right past us, thundering down the ramp. They ignore us and bolt for a door at the bottom of the ramp. Suddenly everything slips to the right. Vesna loses her footing and slides off the ramp into empty air. I have her wrist. With a tug that pops bone in my hand, I pull her close.

  Three goblins fall, shrieking into nothing, until they hit bottom far below. The rest ignore their comrades.

  We burst out the main corridor, dodging falling stones. All around is chaos. Cloudships drop from the sky in uncontrolled dives. Cries of men doomed to their deaths echo throughout the air. They will stay with me forever.

  The dragons take advantage to soar higher, regroup. I count nine, including Benath. Whether more have survived, I do not know.

  “Bowen! There she is!” Niall points to a high platform halfway around the tower of Navio Mons.

  Sleet is there, lashed to the platform, and riding out the collapsing walls. There’s nary I can do—drained of magic, bereft of the Bloodheart, I can only watch as her timbers split ad her sails tear. In moments my Sleet is reduce to splinters. They’re lost through the wisps of cloud on their way to the ocean’s waves.

  My life falls with those pieces.

  Beneath us the ground trembles. Great rifts open. The tower is falling to pieces, huge stones toppling down, smashing walls and bashing walkways. Great gashes open up. Slabs of earth rip away. The shaking knocks us down—Vesna first, her arms dragging me down, and Niall falling with Ariya still in his grasp. Dirt and rocks rain down upon us. I do my best to shield Vesna from the debris.

  Everything drops out from underneath.

  We tumble through the clouds, wind howling in my ears. Clothing flaps the same as Sleet’s sails under a headwind. Falling. Over the edge.

  I’ve seen it happen enough. Know what will happen. Have heard the stories and seen the bodies afterward. Broken just as plain as if they’d hit the side of a mountain.

  Am I ready for that world without end? It is the only way I can see my Cassia, and Evan, and Luc. I am in Your hands.

  The roar startles me. Wind buffets my body from another direction, a strong gust. There’s a plunge into shadow and something rough as wood slams into my side. I’m wrenched from my dive.

  A claw. Dragon’s claws.

  It is Tereth. Wounded, yet still his wings pound the air. He dodges the shattered remains of the isle, the broken stone of the Navio Mons fortress, and angles up and away. Vesna is clutched firmly in his other claw.

  Niall? I crane my neck. Another younger dragon has him—and Ariya’s body is no longer pressed to his chest. He’s yelling with rage, squirming in the dragon’s grasp. But there’s nothing to be done. She is nowhere to be seen.

  Gridley. Luc. I don’t see their bodies either. The largest chunk of Navio Mons falls faster still, shedding more pieces, an arrow straight into the sea.

  “Higher!” Benath’s shout shakes the air. “Faster, limp-wings! Move your scales or we’re drowned!”

  Drowned? Up here?

  The impact is deafening. A pebble dropped in a pond by a child, a thousand thousand times greater. Navio Mons burrows deep below the surface, digging a dark hole. Water explodes from the ocean in huge waves, leaping up into the sky with a terrible, throaty roar. Sea foam churning, hissing. Wind rushes up at us, turning the dragons’ determined flight into a twisting, panicked rout. The water is right behind. Tereth’s wings flap furiously. My breath is lost.

  Up.

  Fast.

  There’s endless sound and sea spray that seems it will never let us go. It will drag us out of the clouds and bury us under a mountain of ocean.

  Heartbeats pass. Long ones.

  We soar free. Out of reach. Far below, the waves are crashing out, spreading their awful hands across the sea, carrying the debris of dozens of warships and drowning the stones of Navio Mons.

  The Bloodheart is gone. So is the danger. The darkness. The skies are clear, and the dragons carry us away.

  I cannot feel magic. Cannot summon the ice. My body is weak, and warm.

  What have I done?

  Strathern

  It is dark. And cold.

  Bowen Cord’s ice is the last thing I feel.

  When I saw my own end, I thought it would be on a bed, with warm arms around me and a warm fire in the hearth. My hair would be silver, my heart slowing, contented, and outside legions of men and women following on my every word. I would reign supreme, even in the moment of my death.

  Instead.

  This.

  What I would give to see my kin again. My siblings. Even my parents. To feel the grass between my toes, the mud in my fingers, and the laughter deep in my chest.

  Satara. I miss her. I would give anything to be with her now, to see her smile. Can a heart ache when it’s stopped?

  It doesn’t matter now. I’ve been a fool. The relic is gone from my reach.

  What do I expect now? Mercy? Be it so…

  I grasp in the darkness for something. Anything. My fingers close on a hand.

  It seizes mine painfully. Claws pierce my skin. The cold is vanquished by sudden, scorching flame. All around me is fire.

  Laughter assails me. Here there is no mercy. My last thoughts: What if there was more? What if the soul-mages were right?

  My last thoughts.

  Lost in screams of torment.

  THE THIRTY-THIRD CHAPTER

  ~

  Bowen

  The first rule of magic stands: The death cannot be returned to the living.

  But new love, new life, can fill the void their departure leaves. Such is the gift of the light that breaches the darkness.

  We spent ten months at Jasna Góra sifting through paper scraps, removing charred tapestries, and burying the dead. So many were dead, with Evan among them. His family, mercifully, survived. I held his widow’s hands as she wept beside his grave, his children gathered at the hem of her dress.

  Our toil was long, but cleansing. More and more villagers came to finish the work, more travelers arrived in cloudships bearing supplies and gifts. It will take years for Jasna Góra to reclaim its former glory. I will return when I can, most especially on one memorable day each year—the anniversary of the cold but bright afternoon on which Vesna and I were wed by the surviving priests, with Evan
’s family in attendance.

  The travelers also brought tales of the destruction of Northamber’s might. The huge waves Navio Mons unleashed upon the seas crashed down on Northamber’s cliffs with an awful wrath. The king himself could not turn them back. Not one stone left atop the other. With the castle went scores upon scores of the goblin hordes camped upon the coast. There’s no remnant of His Majesty’s fleet. The people of Northamber, their lords and castle of the coast undone, struggle on. Kindness does find its way from other realms, though, in spite of the pain the now extinct royal family inflicted on the rest of the isles.

  The Duke of Slaskie, having heard our story and seen our works, brought us before him and offered us anything as a reward. Anything his duchy could provide.

  Niall, Vesna, and I did not need but a moment’s look at each other before I gave the Duke an answer.

  When I turn the rise-wheel, she responds ably. Stiffly, but ably. A gentle twist of the alter-wheel bends our course to starboard.

  She’s no Sleet. She’s Northwind. A cutter of similar lines, eight feet longer in the keel and four feet wider abeam. The hull’s a lighter shade of wood, a tougher grain, and still smells newly carved from the slipway. gray canvas sails catch the air, rippling and bulging as we soar the South Atlan for warmer climes.

  Vesna stands beside me, eye pressed to the spyglass. She peeks aside and winks at me. “The view is good ahead, Captain.”

  “The view is good here.” I loop an arm around her waist. Rest my hands on the curve of her stomach, which bulges under her dress. A thump twitches beneath my fingers. I smile. A fine kick, from this lad or lass.

  “We’ll make the isles soon. Land’s ahead.”

  “So I see. Niall!” I holler down the deck. “Isle ho!”

  Niall turns from his climb aloft on the rigging. “Yes, I’ve not gone blind, Captain. Boys! Prepare the tie lines, cubs!”

  Our new crew: twin youth from Slaskie with black hair, olive skin, their faces narrow and their arms slender, ropy with muscle. One has blue eyes and the other deep brown; elsewise they cannot be told apart. They leap to their work, with Niall lashing them along with his words. He pauses only to smirk at me.