The Swarm Trilogy

by Megg Jensen

  Relax? He had to be kidding.

  Chase’s hands moved through the air, turning circles around each other. The muscles on his arms flexed and retracted. A glowing blue ball emerged between his hands and grew bigger with each movement.

  Bryden stood, his legs bent at the knees, his hands up in a fighting stance. It wasn’t a good stance, not remotely steady. He’d never been trained in fighting. He was a scribe and even though he’d learned to use his magic, I still didn’t know how powerful he was. He’d saved me once from a dungeon filled with idiot guards. Against my mother, he didn’t stand a chance.

  A vise took hold of my heart as I remembered their earlier fight. Bryden had seen a picture of himself dying at my mother’s hands while trying to save me. I trembled inside, but my body didn’t respond. The cocoon was too tight.

  “Let me out now!” I screamed at Xaxier.

  “I am under strict orders from Chase not to let you go free.”

  I’d learned everyone obeyed Chase. Everyone except me, that is. If Xaxier said he wouldn’t let me go because of Chase’s direction, then I was trapped. But it didn’t mean I wouldn’t give up.

  “Go back through the portal!” I yelled to Bryden. “Please! You don’t belong here!”

  He shook his head, without taking his eyes from my mother. She hadn’t noticed them yet, or she was too deep into the spell to do anything about it. Maybe like me, she couldn’t move or she’d die. That would explain why she’d moved us from the castle to a deserted cave. She needed no interruptions. She just hadn’t counted on her right-hand man betraying her to her enemy.

  Her mouth, slack, still sucked in the flames pouring out of my body. Her arms spread wide to the sides. Not one muscle twitched.

  My eyes darted to Chase again. The magical ball of light he was building in his hands grew larger and larger until it was the size of his chest. He looked over at me, only for a second. Our eyes made contact and in that moment I saw into his soul. He opened himself to me in a way he’d never done before.

  Please don’t move, Lianne. You can trust Xaxier, he thought to me.

  Make Bryden leave! I didn’t care about myself at the moment. I just wanted Bryden out of there. We were all so busy trying to save each other that not one of us cared whether we walked out with our own lives.

  I tried. He won’t stay away. Close your eyes.

  What?

  CLOSE YOUR EYES!

  I squeezed my eyelids together as hard as I could. Even through the blackness, sparks shot in the air, light filled everything. The rip in my soul began to mend. The flames bled back into my body, filling me with a fire so powerful I worried I would combust.

  I struggled again, surprised to find my arms and legs free of the cocoon they’d trapped me in. Xaxier’s hands no longer held my head. My eyes snapped open. Except the one candle in the back of the cave, the room was dark again. I reached my arms out in front of me, my fingers grazing the air looking for someone, anyone, to hold on to.

  Don’t move, Lianne!

  Where’s Bryden?

  Don’t move. Please!

  Jumping off the concrete slab, I felt around in the dark air. I had to find Bryden. Protect him. I wouldn’t let him die for me. I would kill myself if he did. My arms and legs didn’t support me like they had in the past. Every part of me was too tired.

  I kept quiet, just like everyone else in the room. Four against one. I wished she would just give herself up. There was no reason for her to fight. She had to know she was going to lose.

  Fingers closed around my ankles, yanking me to the ground. Before I could figure out if it was one of my friends or my mother, an arm snaked around my neck.

  She’s got me, Chase.

  A light bloomed in the cave, illuminating it brighter than a cloudless summer afternoon. On the other side of the cave, Xaxier stood next to Chase. I didn’t see Bryden anywhere. I hoped with everything in me that he’d gone back through the portal. It was closed now, nowhere to be seen. If I knew Bryden was on the other side, I’d take every risk I could to get back to him.

  “Let her go, Kiran,” Xaxier said to my mother. “It’s over.”

  “I can kill her in seconds. Then you’ll kill me. You’ll kill me either way. Why should I be the only one to die?”

  Her arm crooked tighter around my neck. On a normal day, I could have taken her down in seconds, but my body was too weak from the ritual. She hadn’t just tried to suck out my magic, she’d destroyed my energy too. I reached deep inside me, feeling the magic that had come back. Like a pool of molten lava, it shifted and stirred, not giving any clue as to when it would blow. I tried controlling it the way Chase taught me, but something had changed. It didn’t respond to me. I had the distinct impression it was actively ignoring me.

  “Just let her go and we’ll let you live,” Chase said. He held out a hand to me. I reached out to take it, but she jerked my neck backward.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” Chase answered, “but some of us aren’t out to kill everyone who gets in our way. If you could step back for a moment, you’d see that’s the truth. Instead of taking the opportunity to kill everyone in your path, try looking at the world differently for a moment. She’s your daughter, for Eloh’s sake. Let her live.”

  “Eloh?” she asked. “What’s an Eloh?”

  Chase sighed. “The goddess I worship.”

  “I don’t recognize your gods,” my mother said. “I will do nothing in their name. Lianne has no reason to live. I’ve drained her magic from her. You were all too late.”

  I held my breath, letting it out in short, metered exhalations. She thought it was gone. My only advantage rested in knowing I had magic, of some kind, and I would use it to destroy her. The pool bubbled deep inside my soul. Sparks popped into the ether, singeing the air around it. I glanced around. They didn’t move or remark on it. No one else could see it or feel it. It was mine alone. My secret. My only defense.

  “She doesn’t need her magic to live.” A voice called out from behind us. My heart sank. Bryden. He hadn’t left after all.

  My mother scooted backward, pulling me with her. Her back hit flush against the rocky cave wall. Pebbles scrabbled underneath our shifting bodies. Magic roiled around, but I wished that my body would regain its strength. Being physically helpless was a great fear of mine. I’d put years of training into honing my body into an indestructible force. Now all of my fears were realized. I couldn’t fight back and Bryden, dear, sweet Bryden, who’d seen a drawing of his own death at the hands of my mother was here, even though we all knew he could die.

  I swore to myself I wouldn’t let it happen.

  “Kill me now and get it over with,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Lianne!” Bryden yelled. He took a step closer to us, but my mother lifted a hand, her fingernail pointed at my cheek.

  “Take one step closer, lover boy, and she’ll be dead before you know it.”

  Bryden stepped back again.

  “I never stopped loving you,” I said to him. “I pushed you away so this wouldn’t happen.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” he asked. “Do you really think I’m so stupid?” Emotion poured out of his blue eyes.

  I choked on the tears I contained inside. “I guess I’m the stupid one,” I said.

  I cocked my arm, jabbing my elbow into my mother’s gut. I only had strength for one move and that was the easiest. She grunted, letting go of my neck. I rolled out of her grasp, toward Bryden. My only goal was to open a portal and push him through it. Get him away from her and Chase’s prophetic drawing.

  He knelt down on one knee, catching my reeling body in his arms. His lips found mine, but I pushed him back. I flicked my hand, creating a portal behind him. It was the simplest of magic, not requiring one ounce of the fire inside me.

  “Go,” I whispered, my strength fading with each passing second.

  “I’ll never leave you.”

>   A blast of cold ice surrounded us. Bryden pushed me to the side, gasped, and fell on his back. A dagger of ice, no bigger than the palm of my hand, embedded itself in his chest. Blood pooled around the wound.

  I struggled to sit up, my hands fumbling over his chest. I pressed down on the wound, my hands melting the icy shard, but the blood continued to bubble out of him. My hands were drenched in his blood.

  “Stop,” I whispered under my breath. “I can’t make it stop.”

  Sticky warmth spread across my hands, snaking up my arms. She’d made a direct hit to his heart.

  “Get Johna!” I screamed behind me, not bothering to look at what my mother was doing now. I had to help Bryden. “Get her now.” My voice cracked as I pushed harder on his chest. “Don’t you die, Bryden. Don’t you dare die!”

  A hint of a smile pushed at his cheeks. His right hand reached up, tangling itself in my hair. “You’re safe now. Chase and Xaxier have her bound.”

  I quickly turned my head, looking behind me. My mother struggled in a cocoon similar to the one she’d made around me earlier.

  “I don’t care about her. I only care about you. I love you, Bryden. You won’t leave me, okay? Chase’ll get Johna. She’ll heal you. It’ll be okay.”

  “I don’t regret anything. You have to know that. Not one thing.” His voice quieted to barely a whisper. I laid my ear against his lips, straining to his final words. “I love you.”

  He choked, then expelled one final breath of air that sounded almost like he was saying my name.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chase opened a portal in the cave. “We have to go now, Lianne.” He placed a hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off. Xaxier had already left with my mother trapped in the cocoon. He didn’t say where he was taking her. I didn’t care as long as I never saw her again. If I did, she’d be dead in seconds.

  “My people will take care of her. We know how to sever someone from their gift,” Chase said.

  I still held Bryden in my arms, refusing to let anyone come near him.

  “Get Johna,” I said for the hundredth time. “She can help him.”

  “She can’t. He’s gone. No one can bring anyone back from the dead.”

  I glared at Chase. “This is your fault. You knew he was going to die. You could have stopped it.”

  Chase shook his head. “I couldn’t. You know that. I didn’t know how or when or why it would happen. I had one moment frozen in time. It could have happened weeks ago. It could have been years from now. I didn’t know.”

  “Then why the hell didn’t you stop my mother before any of this went on?”

  “What? You wanted me to kill a woman who’d done nothing?”

  “She hadn’t, but you knew she was going to. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No, Lianne, it’s not.”

  It should have been. I knew. I had time. I could have killed her when I walked into Sebrina’s room. Instead of talking to her, I should have just ripped her heart out, thrown it on the ground, and stomped on it until all the blood pooled on the hard stone floor. I had killed before to save someone. I should have done it again.

  Should have.

  But I didn’t.

  I looked down at Bryden again. His red hair laid on my black dress. I ran my fingers through it, remembering how much that turned him on.

  Used to turn him on.

  His lips on mine. His hands on my hips, running up and down my back. Those were things I’d never feel again. I couldn’t tell him I loved him. Couldn’t tell him I was sorry.

  Couldn’t save him.

  He died for me.

  But what did he leave behind? An empty mound, with a fire bubbling inside, ready to explode at any second. The girl he’d loved was gone. When my mother ripped my magic from my body, some integral part of who I was disappeared with it. Something poured back into me, but I still hadn’t figure out what it was.

  All I knew was that I was irrevocably changed.

  “Lianne, please,” Chase said again. “I have to get you out of here.”

  “I won’t leave Bryden.”

  “I swear to you, I will send someone for him. But we have to leave. I need to get you into hiding again.”

  I ripped my eyes from Bryden’s lifeless eyelids. “You absolutely will not. I will never hide from anyone again. I’m not a coward.”

  “They’ll capture you and force you to breed for their army. If you won’t, they’ll kill you.”

  “Do you think I care if I die?”

  “Right now you don’t care. I understand that. But someday you’ll be grateful to be alive.”

  I laid my hands gently on the sides of Bryden’s head, moving his head to the floor. I watched his body carefully, hoping for a twitch, anything that might tell me there was a chance of saving him.

  Nothing.

  I gathered my skirt and stood up.

  “Are the Malborn here?” I asked.

  Chase nodded. “The first wave of their army arrived not long after you were brought here. Their army is stationed outside the castle. As far as I know, they haven’t made a move yet.”

  “I’m going to end this by turning myself in. No more bloodshed.”

  Chase grabbed my arm. “You will do no such thing.”

  I jerked my arm away. “You don’t get to make decisions for me anymore.”

  “Then let him make the decision.” He pointed down at Bryden.

  My heart lurched again at the sight of his dead, inert body, lifeless on the dirt-covered ground.

  “He sacrificed his life to protect you. What do you think he’d say if he could hear you now? If turning yourself over to the Malborn was the right thing to do, why would he even bother trying to save you? Do you really think he’d send you into Kellan’s arms to be raped until you can produce a child with magic?”

  I slapped Chase, but his face didn’t move. It was almost as if he’d expected it. My hand stung. My arm throbbed. My full strength still hadn’t returned yet. I fingered the dagger hanging on my waist, wondering how it would feel to embed it in Chase’s chest.

  I recoiled, shocked at my own thoughts. How could I even consider doing to Chase what my mother had just done to Bryden? My hand flew to my chest. My heart beat solidly inside my rib cage, reminding me that I was alive. I didn’t die with Bryden, even though, deep down, that’s what I wanted.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, lightly touching Chase’s red cheek.

  “I baited you into it,” he said. “You’re thinking a bit more clearly now, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “I was the hysterical one. You should have slapped me.”

  “Do you really think I’d do that?”

  I didn’t have to answer. We both knew he’d never raise a hand to me.

  I slid back to the ground and took Bryden’s hand in mine. “What now?”

  “I’ll leave you here with him for a few minutes while I find someone to help me retrieve his body. We’ll treat him to a proper burial, Lianne, I promise.”

  “I don’t want him buried here,” I said. “Take him to your homeland. It’s peaceful there, right?”

  Chase nodded. “I know my family would welcome him.”

  “That’s perfect. He has no family here. Just me. No one loved him like I did. I can’t stand the thought of him being buried here, among the people who hated him so much. They treated him like he was an outcast.”

  “I’ll be back with Ace in a few minutes. Are you going to be okay alone?”

  I didn’t answer. He left in silence, leaving me alone to face my past, my present, and my future.

  “What am I going to do without you?” I asked Bryden, tracing his forehead with my thumb. “I won’t give in to the Malborn, but I can’t run anymore. You taught me to always do what’s right, even though it’s hard. You never gave up fighting for me. Not once.”

  I kissed his forehead. He’d already begun to cool. I fought back the tears threatening to overflow. I wouldn’t cry on him or over him. He wouldn�
�t want me to. Bryden would want me to move forward.

  “I will find a way to end this war so no one else will ever have to fight just to live their life. I swear, Bryden, I will find a way.”

  A light flickered in the cave and Chase, Ace, and another man I’d never met entered the cave. They carried a stretcher.

  “I’m ready,” I said to them. I wasn’t really. I never would be.

  “Ace and my father will take Bryden back,” Chase said.

  “Your father?” I spun around in surprise. The man who wasn’t Ace, the man with only one hand, saluted me. “Thank you, sir,” I said, not sure how to address him. I knew he was royalty of some sort from Chase’s stories.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss, Lianne. Chase explained you’d like Bryden buried in Serenia. We’re happy to accommodate you,” his father said. “You can call me Mark.”

  “Thank you, Mark.” I flew into his arms, burying my head in his shoulder. More than anything, I needed a hug. I just wasn’t sure it was right to ask for one from Chase considering his feelings for me. His father didn’t hesitate, not even for a moment. He wrapped his arms around me, letting me leave myself vulnerable for a few seconds.

  I backed out of his embrace. When I turned around, Bryden was already on the stretcher. I walked over to his side and kissed his cheek one last time.

  “I love you too,” I whispered in his ear.

  Mark lifted his hand, taking over the end of the stretcher from Chase. Using magic, he held it up on the other side. Ace nodded to me. I dipped my chin back to him as they walked through the portal with Bryden.

  “You first,” Chase said, gesturing toward the portal.

  “No,” I said. “I have one stop to make first. Will you come with me so you can open a portal to Serenia when I’m done?”

  Chase nodded. I held out my hand and he took it in his. Then I flicked my wrist, opening a portal to a place I knew well. We stepped through, coming out on the far side of the castle, smack in the middle of the cemetery. The wind blew my gown and my hair to the west. The moon stood proud in the sky, illuminating the army camped just beyond the castle and town. Light rain fell around me, but I didn’t put my hood up. A raven flew past. Even that harbinger of death was comforting.