Empire of Demons (The Moonstone Chronicles Book 4)

by Sara C. Roethle

  Phaerille blinked a few times, her eyes first landing on Saida, then settling on Malon. “Have you finally come to free me? I think I have been punished enough.”

  Saida’s pity vanished like dandelion fluff on the wind. “Free you? You tried to have me killed.”

  Phaerille ignored her, her eyes still on Malon. “I served you loyally. I love you. You would not leave me here.”

  Saida turned her attention to Malon, wanting to judge his reaction.

  He stared at Phaerille, his expression impassive. “You betrayed me at every turn. Why would I free you? Saida’s kind heart is the only reason you still live.”

  Phaerille used her bound hands to push herself into a seated position. The expression on her face was frightening, like a priestess gazing at an idol of Cindra in utter devotion. “Anything I did, I only did because I love you.” Her weak voice cracked, on the edge of tears.

  Malon looked at her like she was an insect. “You know nothing of love. Your heart is selfish and weak. Saida will not let me kill you, but this will be the last time you ever see me.”

  Phaerille stared blankly for a moment, then began to cry in earnest.

  Ignoring her, Malon looked to Saida. “If you have anything to say to her, now is your time.”

  Her jaw slightly agape, she just shook her head. She realized she wasn’t the one who had needed to find closure with Phaerille. It was Malon who needed to say his final goodbye.

  She glanced one last time at Phaerille, then turned back to Malon. “It doesn’t matter. Once we have accomplished what we set out to do, we’ll turn her loose, and neither of us will ever have to think about her again.”

  Phaerille’s sobs followed them out of the tent, and Saida felt no pity at all.

  Chapter Four

  Alluin

  Alluin’s shoulders relaxed as the small port came into view, scented with woodsmoke from various cookfires. It had already been decided that he and Elmerah would search the town for the rest of their crew, while Celen and Merwyn kept an eye out near the shore further west. They had found a small stream to wash up and slake their thirst, but with torn clothing and injuries, they still looked like they had just come out of a battle.

  Alluin walked at Elmerah’s side as they ventured into the port. Most of the small town was built upon wooden docks, bordering a calm inlet of the sea. They passed a few elves and humans fishing off the docks with long poles, few paying them any heed. He noticed that some of the townsfolk possessed the darker coloring of the South, though everyone was deeply tanned regardless of heritage. His eyes widened as an older woman walked by, wearing a much shorter skirt than what he was used to seeing. He supposed on such a remote island, the people would make their own rules on what was and wasn’t proper. Most of the men were shirtless, and the fabric they did wear was lightweight and dyed in deep earth tones.

  He leaned in close to Elmerah as they reached a few small boats tethered to the dock. Too small to venture all the way to the mainland upon. “I can see why you chose to live here. There is an easy air about this place.”

  Elmerah turned toward the edge of the dock, gazing out across the glittering sea. She huddled within her stained gray coat, though the day was comfortably warm. “I did not choose to live here. Celen helped me smuggle myself onto a pirate ship, and this was the first place it docked. I figured it as good a place as any.” She shrugged. “Of course, I was wrong. Rissine eventually found me.”

  He stood at her shoulder, looking back toward the sound of voices. A few fishermen had reached the dock on their small boat, and were talking loudly about finding a hot meal. He turned his attention to Elmerah. “Why didn’t you want Celen to know?”

  Her jaw tensed. “You mean this morning? It’s humiliating. When he helped me escape Rissine, I told him I was going to do something great with my life. Something better than what I was born into. Then I got off at the first island and hid. I hid in that tiny shack and spent most of my time alone.”

  “It’s not humiliating. You needed time to heal.”

  She shook her head, then turned to continue down the dock.

  He caught up to her side, watching her dark eyes scanning across the people milling about. Soon they reached the end of the planks and veered onto a dirt path leading to some rickety wooden buildings with no doors. Inside the first one, a small man without a shirt stirred a massive boiling pot. A few men and women waited around with wooden bowls to be filled.

  They walked down another path, then Elmerah turned to lean her back against a wall in the shade. “We will wait here. If any of our crew reach this place, they should walk down this main path.”

  Alluin leaned next to her, his thoughts still on their previous conversation. “You’ve done many great things since you left this island.”

  She watched the people walking by, her hair lifting in the breeze. He thought she might ignore him again, then finally, she asked, “Like what? It seems for all of our troubles we are still in the same place. Still trying to figure out a way to defeat the emperor. We have made no real progress.”

  He wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. He thought of all they had been through. All of the failures, and few successes. “You know, that day I saw you at the inn—the first day we met—I was debating leaving Galterra for good.”

  She whipped wide eyes to him. “I don’t believe you. Not after you and your uncle had worked so hard to protect your people.”

  He couldn’t quite meet her eyes, but he knew he had to tell her. If she was willing to share her shame with him, the least he could do was grant her the same courtesy. “I was frustrated. We were always putting in the work, spying, trying to gain allies to survive. But we never seemed to get anywhere. Years went by, and we were still in the same place we had started. I was ready to be done with it all. If I couldn’t create a life in Galterra, I would go somewhere else, perhaps even sail to an island far from the Capital.”

  She let out a rueful laugh and shook her head. “Then you saw an angry witch at a tiny inn and changed your mind?”

  He smiled, recalling the memory. “I saw you and Saida together in a place where few Arthali or Faerune elves would dare to venture. At least not on their own. I took it as a sign that perhaps change had finally come. I knew I had to figure out who you were and what you were doing there.”

  The corner of her mouth ticked up. “And you got much more than you bargained for, didn’t you?”

  “What I got was my dearest friend, and my only shred of hope after my people had been slaughtered.”

  Her smile wilted. “I remember that night all too clearly,” she said carefully.

  He knew she was still waiting for him to talk about it. But what could he say? It had happened. It was done. There was no bringing them back. He watched a young couple passing by, laughing at some private joke. “I shouldn’t have put so much pressure on you.” He took a steadying breath. “I shouldn’t have placed all of my hope in your hands. It wasn’t your problem. None of it ever was.”

  She sidled a little closer to him, nudging her shoulder against his. “It’s alright. It’s not like I was doing anything else with my life. I only wish I could have been deserving of your faith.” She leaned more heavily against the wall and gazed up at the sky. “Now look at me, wounded, beaten, and unable to even summon a lick of magic.”

  He’d thought about that too, why she was now so afraid, and why her magic had gone out of control to begin with. “Do you think—” he hesitated, unsure how she would take what he wanted to say.

  She waited while a scantily-clad man carrying a line of fresh caught fish walked by, then said, “Go on.”

  He took a moment to choose his words. “Do you think your magic went so out of control because you were desperate to save Rissine? Because you knew she would be captured or killed if you didn’t do something?”

  A gust of salty breeze hit them. Elmerah lifted her chin and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. “She wasn’t the only one I was protecting. There was y
ou, and Celen.” She opened her eyes and creased her brow. “Since finding you and Saida . . . it’s the first time I really wanted to protect something after my mother was killed. I knew I could not fail. But what I did scared me more than anything else. If any of you had stood in the way of that magic, you would have been gone. I would have been helpless to control it.” She shook her head. “I’ve never lost control like that.”

  He opened his mouth to say more, but Elmerah was peering in the other direction at a sandy-haired youth walking down the path. “Is that—”

  “Killian,” Alluin finished for her.

  They pushed away from the wall and started walking.

  The Nokken in disguise quickly noticed them, his eyes lighting up with excitement. He hurried forward, meeting them halfway down the path.

  Alluin searched around, but saw no one else he recognized. “Are you here alone?” he asked Killian.

  Killian pushed short hair away from his temporarily human face. “I reached shore not far from this place. I started searching for any of you this morning and only just returned here. Is Celen with you?”

  “Keeping an eye out for the others near shore,” Alluin explained. “Have you found anyone else? Isara? My sister—”

  Killian shook his head. “No,” he turned his attention to Elmerah, “your sister, however, I came across this morning, and you’re not going to believe what I saw.”

  Elmerah’s eyes went dark. “Let’s start walking, we’re drawing attention.” Once they were walking together down the path with Elmerah in the center, she asked, “Now what of my sister?”

  “Well, she’s alive,” Killian began. “So is Zirin, they were together. But they were also meeting with a bunch of Akkeri. One of them was huge. That’s how I found them to begin with. I could smell the Akkeri.”

  Elmerah had stopped walking. Her voice was cold and even, though Alluin could see the sudden fear in her eyes. “Did they capture her?”

  Killian’s eyes darted between her and Alluin. “Um, no. The giant Akkeri gave her something, and then they left. I wasn’t close enough to see what it was. I followed Rissine and Zirin for a while, then they stopped to rest. Zirin has an injury.”

  “You didn’t approach them?” Alluin asked.

  Killian winced. “Forgive me, but after I saw them with the Akkeri . . . plus, Rissine is scary. She’s so mean. Not like Elmerah.”

  Alluin caught a curious lingering glance from a man carrying a basket of fresh bread down the path. “We should find Celen and Merwyn and continue this conversation with them.”

  Elmerah nodded, her gaze distant.

  Alluin didn’t have to ask what she was thinking. She had never fully trusted her sister, and just what was she supposed to think now? Why would the Akkeri meet with her, but not capture her? Why had they really sunk their ship?

  His stomach growled as they started walking, but he could hardly think of food. All he could think of was how he could possibly protect Elmerah. Arrows and Akkeri were one thing, but her own sister? He watched her out of the corner of his eye, but her expression gave nothing away. She had already taken a beating. She could withstand a great deal. But something told him if Rissine betrayed her again, it might be the thing to finally shatter her.

  Saida

  The demon realm was a place of darkness and strange smells. Plants somehow grew in the rocky ground without sunlight. Many of them glowed eerie shades of blue and purple. Large luminescent insects scuttled away from Malon’s wisplight, kept small and dim with the intention of not drawing in any demons.

  Saida shivered just thinking about it, and reflexively ran her fingertips across the Crown of Cindra at her belt. The experience of crossing through a demon portal had been . . . unexpected. The one they’d used was deep inside a natural cavern. Malon had taken her hand and led her straight through a wall of dimly glowing green light. She had reached back at the last moment to grab Brosod. Whatever substance composed the portal seemed to cling to her skin like oil, but once they came out the other side, into this darkness, she was as clean as when she’d gone in. They all were.

  Malon stopped walking, holding a small compass near the wisplight. The odd glowing plants reflected their colors on his loose silver hair. “We know north is the general direction we need to go, but you’ll have to use your tie to Elmerah for us to find the closest portal.”

  She glanced over his arm at the compass. She could not even tell north from south in this place. “But the curse is over. I can’t sense her anymore. I thought you knew where we were going.”

  Brosod hopped closer to Saida as a large glowing snake slithered across their path. “Without fresh ingredients, we cannot cast the curse again.”

  “Keep your voices down,” Malon muttered. He handed Saida the compass. “You are a moon priestess. You see things others do not. Use the magic of the circlet and try to find Elmerah.”

  Saida looked down at the compass in one hand, gripping the circlet still tied to her belt with the other. She tried to focus, but irritation quickly won out. “I don’t know how. If I knew we were relying on me to find Elmerah, I never would have agreed to coming down here. I thought you would be able to bring us to the general area of the islands I saw.”

  “Which is precisely why I didn’t tell you. Now you have no choice but to set aside your fears and try.”

  Brosod sidled a little closer to Saida. “You should try quickly, priestess. My instincts tell me we should not remain in one place for too long.”

  “She’s right,” Malon said flatly. “If we wait too long, a greater demon will happen upon us sooner or later.”

  “You’re insufferable,” Saida hissed.

  She gripped the compass in one hand and the circlet tightly in the other, then closed her eyes. This was just like Malon, tricking her into further exploring the powers of the circlet. Her powers. Egrin’s words came up in her mind again. Ask him why he agreed to let the Dreilore into Faerune. She pushed the question to the back of her thoughts, focusing on the compass in her hand, and on her need to find Elmerah.

  The metal of the circlet turned cold. In her mind’s eye, she could see moonlight flowing up through one arm and then down the other, into the compass. Distantly, she sensed Malon and Brosod moving closer, just as she sensed something large and dark not far off, moving toward them.

  “We must hurry,” Malon whispered.

  The compass grew warm in her hand. She heard not a whisper from the circlet, but she knew with sudden surety that the compass would now lead her toward her friend. Had it been Cindra’s doing, or her own? She wasn’t sure.

  “Saida,” Malon cautioned, “we need to move.”

  She opened her eyes, checking that the circlet was still secure at her belt before removing her hand. “I know which way to go.”

  “Something is coming near,” Brosod whispered, clenching the pole of her spear as her eyes scanned their surroundings.

  An unearthly growl trickled from a very large throat.

  Malon took Saida’s free hand.

  “Do we fight or flee?” she rasped.

  “Fighting will draw the attention of other demons,” Malon explained. “It could greatly impede our progress. I will create a distraction, and we will run.”

  She felt magic coming from him, then a flash of sunlight lit up the giant creature, much nearer than Saida had realized. Her mind could barely make sense of all of the shiny red limbs, and the huge gaping maw dripping saliva. The creature shrieked, blinded by the sunlight.

  Saida stood dumbfounded, blinking stars out of her vision.

  “Run!” Malon hissed, already dragging her along.

  She ran with her hand still in his, Brosod keeping pace at her other side. The compass pressed against her palm seemed to tug her forward, guiding her in the right direction. Guiding her toward Elmerah.

  She realized with a start that it meant Elmerah was still alive. She was still waiting to be found. A demonic shriek, then the clicking of multiple limbs on stone follo
wed after them, and all other thoughts except escape fled from her mind.

  Chapter Five

  Saida

  Saida ran through a narrow valley amongst strange dead trees, allowing the compass to guide her until it felt like her legs were about to give out. Brosod and Malon ran just behind her, protecting her. They stopped at the base of a rocky cliff, glowing with clinging lichen and vines.

  “Up,” Malon ordered.

  Saida’s knees trembled. Neither Brosod nor Malon seemed as winded as her. “You can’t possibly be serious,” she panted.

  “Greater demons are intelligent,” Malon explained. “It may still be tracking us. I want the higher ground should it choose to attack.”

  “I’ll help you,” Brosod assured.

  Saida placed the compass from her sweaty palm into her belt pouch, double-checked the circlet fastened next to it, then wiped her hands on her breeches. “Fine.” She gripped a rock just above her head, testing it. The cliffside seemed secure, and inclined enough to make the climb possible.

  Malon and Brosod waited for her to start climbing before they joined her. With her spear strapped to her back along with her bow and quiver, Brosod looked like a hermit crab easily scaling the cliff. A very dangerous hermit crab. Panting and sweaty, they climbed onward with darkness stretching endlessly overhead. Saida’s hands scraped across rocks and rough vines, her heart pounding so hard she felt faint. One hand reached solid ground above, but she couldn’t muster the strength to pull herself up.

  It was all she could do to cling to the cliffside while Brosod scrambled past her, then pulled her up. She dragged herself away from the edge, then sat on the rocky dirt, catching her breath.

  Malon came up after her, collapsing onto the dirt beside her, breathing heavily. “We should be alright now. If it catches up, at least we’ll see it coming. Take a moment to rest, then we’ll move on.”