I keep expecting him to split apart completely, to illusion himself into several different bodies the way he did during our last day on Earth.
But he never does.
“I’m saving my strength,” he says suddenly, as if he’s once again managed to read my thoughts in a way that he shouldn’t be able to. “Because when we’re finished here, I’ll be moving on to your friends.”
“They were your friends too,” I snap. “Or they wanted to be, at least. The came here to help me save you—they barely even hesitated. And what did you do to them in return?”
My voice cracks a bit toward the end.
I don’t want to take my eyes off him, but a renewed fear for what could have caused Liam and Carys to disappear shakes through me, and I can’t help but glance over my shoulder at that strange wall.
“Do you really want to know what I did?” Soren asks.
“Tell me.”
If anything happens to them, I’m never going to forgive myself.
“Honestly? Not much…yet.” He grins wickedly. “But they’re being held for me, all safe and secure. I’ll have some fun with them later.”
Something in me breaks.
Everything around me is still distractingly off-kilter—but it doesn’t matter.
Because I’m just going to destroy everything around me.
The thought crosses my mind, and it happens before I have a chance to talk myself out of it.
The hallway fills with fire and lightning. So much smoke, so many sparks that I lose track of Soren, of myself—of everything.
When it settles, I see him crouched on the floor ten feet away, sword in hand and one arm over his face, a hazy barrier of white magic surrounding him. But barrier magic has never been his strength. So his face is scorched and bloody and, more importantly, his focus has shifted on trying to protect himself—which means his illusions have fallen, and all of my surroundings are momentarily still and real and stable.
Parts of those surroundings are also on fire, yes.
But if I have to take us both down in flames, then so be it.
I’m not running away.
Our eyes lock.
I charge forward.
He tries to meet my sword as he did before, but he’s not fast enough this time. I slice deep into his shoulder. He cries out, and I have to fight my urge to do the same.
This is wrong, whispers the human side of my brain.
Fight or die, the wolf side reminds me.
Soren’s sword clatters to the ground. I snatch him by the arm and swing him around, pulling him further away from his weapon and slamming him against the wall. He lets out another painful yelp as his shoulder hits. One of the hanging mirrors is jostled by the impact and it falls, shatters against the ground. The broken glass reflects flames building along the molding above us, eating away at the wallpaper and causing it to peel and droop downward.
“Better kill me quick if you don’t want to burn.”
I press my blood-stained sword to his neck.
A sudden whoosh of heat and an awful crackling noise tell me that the wall is well on its way to being engulfed.
“Hurry up,” he taunts, his gaze trailing down to the blade laid across his skin. His breathing is so labored from the combination of increasing smoke and blood loss that I have a hard time holding that blade steady against him as he heaves.
But I manage it. Somehow I manage to press it steady and hard against those veins throbbing with the effort of breathing. And I consider how easy it would be to make his struggle…stop.
How I don’t have a choice.
How letting him go might mean death. For me, for my friends, for entire worlds.
How he’s blind and desperate in the way that only family can make you blind and desperate, and how dangerous—gods, how dangerous—that is.
How I should have seen this coming.
And then I consider the stars burning to life on the blade I’m holding, and where else could my mind go next, other than that night he made a galaxy burn to life for me?
This is all fake.
A dream.
But that night was not.
We were not.
My sword shakes. Barely. Just enough that whatever evil is controlling Soren must sense it, must realize that it’s won, because that nasty smile is suddenly spreading wide across his face again.
I ignore it. I stare straight into his eyes as I quietly say, “If you’re in there, we’re even again, okay?”
It’s probably my imagination—or another illusion—but as I lower my weapon, I swear I see his eyes flicker back to normal.
The air at my back is cooler. I hear voices, too; more indications that his magic is rattled completely and the fake walls he conjured behind me have fallen completely. Between that—and the way that he’s bleeding and heaving and still unable to catch his breath despite the oddly relaxed smile on his face—I decide this is my best chance to get away.
I can still confront the queen and get the key, and two objectives out of three isn’t bad, right?
I turn and run.
I hear him moving.
I hear his sword scraping the ground as he drags it back to him and picks it up.
A tongue of fire lashes through that elegant silk wallpaper, singes it until it rips and curls into a line of glowing embers. As the paper folds down it takes a metal shield down with it. I see it falling, but I still stumble trying to avoid it.
Soren doesn’t.
He catches me, and his blade sinks deep between my shoulder blades, and I fall face-forward onto the ground.
Chapter Eighteen
It missed my lungs.
I think.
I’m pretty sure I’d be dead if it hadn’t. But I’m still spitting up mouthfuls of blood, and that can’t be good. My entire world is reduced to the hardwood floor and the sight of that blood pooling, spreading across it—and then, footsteps.
Followed by a voice that isn’t Soren’s.
“I was trying to decide which I liked better: The thought of you dying believing my little brother was the one who killed you, or you dying with the knowledge that he’s not even here, because he’s off preparing to help take over the Earth you wanted so badly to save.”
With a painful amount of effort, I manage to roll over onto my side so that I can tilt my head and look up. Blood trickles from my mouth. My vision blacks in and out. When it finally manages to focus, I find myself staring up at a woman who could only be the grown-up version of that serious-looking girl I glimpsed in the locket.
Anika.
Her true self—not disguised as the warrior woman in white.
And not disguised as Soren anymore, either.
I’m not conscious enough to speak the rush of angry thoughts I’m having, but I think a single word does manage to leave my lips, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure that it rhymes with witch.
She laughs.
Through my blurred vision, I see her summon the star blade covered in my blood, watch it float up into the space in front of her and then transform into her familiar staff. She points that staff at something behind me and whispers something under her breath. Something that douses the flames; even in my half-unconscious state I can still tell when the intensity of the heat behind me lessens.
“Mother won’t be pleased about the fire damage,” she muses to herself.
Mother.
The one she was supposedly ashamed of.
They were on the same side, orchestrating this all along.
Even after her clean-up efforts the smoke still lingers, making my blurry eyesight worse. I blink through the tears it causes, and I manage to fix my eyes on her.
“Coward until the end,” I cough.
“Why? Because I took his form, knowing it would make the fight more difficult for you?”
I give her the best glare I can muster.
“I’m not a coward,” she says, smiling in return. “I’m simply clever.”
“Whatever y
ou need to tell yourself.”
“You’ve been outsmarted, Eleanor. Don’t be sore about it; it isn’t a good look on you.”
“You’re not that smart,” I say, partly because I’m an idiot who doesn’t know when to quit talking, but mostly because I want to wipe that stupid grin off her face.
And said grin does tighten a bit as she says, “I was smart enough to know exactly what to do and say to get Soren to deliver the Earth key to us. And you played your part as I thought you would as well.”
I wipe fresh blood from my mouth and attempt to push myself upright. She kicks me hard in the side and sends me toppling onto my back, and I come dangerously close to blacking out again.
“For what it’s worth,” she continues after I somehow manage to open my eyes, “he wanted us to spare you.” Her voice sounds like it’s coming over a radio tuned to a station that doesn’t quite come in. “Not as much as he wanted to make our mother happy, but still. He was so very desperate to see her back on Earth, to see our family all together again. And once we are all together again, what a powerful force we’ll be.”
I stare at the ceiling, at the strange little lights dancing just above my eyes.
“Why?”
“Are you honestly asking me why I want to be powerful?”
“This world has corrupted you,” I mumble. “That’s why, isn’t it?”
The lights flare brighter. My head pounds. I close my eyes.
“Corrupted is a strong word,” I hear her say with a laugh. “But yes, I suppose forty years is a long time to suffer in this world; too long to come back to Earth in the same manner I left it. I barely remember the family we were on Earth, and I don’t much care to go back to what we were, what I was—because we were weak enough to be taken, stolen away into this world. Then we conquered this world. And soon we’ll do the same to Earth. We’ll be untouchable, and so will Soren—so long as he cooperates.”
“He doesn’t want to conquer worlds. He isn’t like you.”
“You think you know him, do you? And yet you couldn’t stop him from handing the key over.”
“He was hurting, and you took advantage of it.”
“No, he wanted to see his mother again—to see her happy—and I gave him the chance to.”
He wanted to see her happy.
Something about her words shatters me, makes me want to curl into myself and die on his behalf.
Death seems inevitable now, anyway. She’s blocking my escape route, and I feel like I could finish myself off just by moving the wrong way. A sprint might collapse my lungs, a wrong twist might break all my bones.
I open my eyes. They want to roll back into my head to get away from the dizzying lights still dancing around me, but I force them to focus, and I turn on my side and push myself up again.
I dart for my sword.
I grab it, twisting and summoning magic in the same motion.
And I feel it breaking me, as expected. But I don’t care. Because I’ve practiced enough that I can keep moving through the brokenness, and I know I can use that blade—so much stronger than what’s left of my body—to channel every ounce of lightning I have left.
It catches her off guard.
She stumbles, shakes violently as that magic grips her and doesn’t let go.
She falls.
My sword is still bursting with electricity when I stab it down into her chest.
I look away as her body thrashes about, still at the mercy of the magic’s current, and I vomit from the pain in my own body before collapsing one last time, right next to her charred and lifeless husk.
(Liam? Carys?) I manage to think.
No reply.
(I’m sorry,) I continue anyway. (I’m sorry for what I led us into, and if you can hear me, please get out. Please—)
Still no answer.
I reach for my sword, which dislodged itself from Anika’s chest as she flailed about, and I grab it with a shaking, burned hand. Then I roll over onto my back, because putting pressure on the oozing wound between my shoulder blades seems to dull the pain somewhat. I clasp the sword to my chest, and I manage to get my other, blood-slick hand securely over the sword’s grip as well.
I probably look like a corpse about to be buried with her favorite worldly possession; I’m not so far gone that the morbid imagery doesn’t strike me.
But I’m too far gone to move.
So I close my eyes and drift away, focusing on the weight of my beautiful weapon instead of on the enormous pressure crushing my heart and lungs.
Chapter Nineteen
I may look like a corpse, but I’m not dying.
I’m shifting.
Because there are two separate but equally annoying voices in my head insisting that I do it, even though I would rather just die. And they’re relentless.
(Shift.)
(Heal.)
(Shift.)
(Heal.)
(Damn it Elle will you hurry up and finish shifting so you can heal?)
I feel like something in my brain dislodges, moves, clicks into place. The pain in my head subsides a little bit—enough that I chance waking up and taking a look at my surroundings.
The dizzying lights are gone. The room I’m in is clear and bold but oddly colored through my widening eyes.
Wolf eyes.
I stretch the transformed muscles that used to control my arms.
Wolf legs, too.
I slowly lift my head and peer down to see most of my human features are gone, along with my burned and bloodied clothing. My sword, too. Did I manage to transform it, too?
(Can you stand?) Carys asks.
(Because we need to get out of here,) Liam adds, more urgently. (We needed to get out of here like five minutes ago.)
(I told you to leave,) I reply, groggily, as I struggle to my feet. (Didn’t you hear me?)
(We heard you,) Carys says. (That’s why we came back. Well, one of the reasons.)
(You guys are really god awful at following directions,) I say, giving my body a shake, trying to rid it of the stiffness and lingering soreness that not even shifting into this more powerful form could get rid of.
But despite that soreness, in seconds I’m already walking, my nose lifted in the air and smelling for clues that will lead us out.
(This way,) Carys says, sprinting past me. (Elric started to lead us out this way earlier, we’ve already killed a lot of the guards—we might run into a few more, but this is apparently a rarely used exit that he frequently snuck out of when he resided and worked here.)
(Where is he?)
They’re both quiet for so long that I’ve already guessed the answer to my question even before Liam’s quiet voice echoes through my thoughts: (Dead.)
I stumble a bit.
Then I walk faster to make up for it, even though it makes the pain between my shoulders nearly unbearable. If he died trying to help us, I’m not going to let in be in vain.
(I wonder if he ever suspected Anika?) I doubt it, even as I think it. It seemed like he had genuine hope when he talked about the possibility of clearing this world of its evil.
So at least he died without realizing that the woman he thought was his closest ally was actually a disgusting traitor.
Carys slows enough to look back at me, and I realize that I haven’t caught them up on the latest crazy twist in our otherworldly adventure. So I do that as we run, in between tackling and tearing apart guards, and while occasionally pausing, hiding until the burning sensation in my back fades again. I know I need to rest if I want to have any hope of fully healing. I’m probably doing some kind of permanent damage by moving.
But it’s not like I can stop.
Even once we’re out of the palace and we make it across the grounds, over miles of that dusty black earth, racing as fast as we can until the sounds of battle fade behind us—even then, I still don’t feel like I can stop.
Because there’s a never ending stream of thought in my mind, demanding that I fix this. Fi
nd Soren and fix this.
(So we’re assuming the queen fled the palace and took the key with her, right?) Liam asks. (That she’s probably planning on using it while most of the ones who might oppose her are still tied up in that battle going on back at said palace?)
I slow to a lope. (When we first got here, Soren mentioned something about there likely being multiple places where one might be able to access The Bridge of Worlds.)
(And Soren is likely with the queen at one of those places.)
His tone is hard to read. Thoughtspeech is probably to blame for that—or maybe he really doesn’t know how he feels about the situation.
To be honest, I’m not sure I do either.
We have to find them. They have the key, and that’s the only way we’re getting home. And someone has to stop the queen from crossing into that home. Nothing has changed about any of that.
But what happens if we get there to find that Soren has changed? That he’s chosen his real family over us? Over me?
Losing him is one thing.
Fighting against him is different—and I’ve already proven that I can’t do it.
And I’m really not up for round two yet.
(Elric said it was likely that the queen needed him because of his stronger, ‘fresher’ ties to Earth, remember?) Carys interjects. (She needs him to help her wield the Earth key.)
(You think there’s a chance they’ve already wielded it?)
(I believe we’d know if they had,) Carys replies. (This world would feel it somehow, like when Elle accidentally triggers fissures and such.)
(Good point,) he agrees, and then they both slow down and fall in beside my slower gait, waiting for my input. My plan. The one I don’t want to think about.
(Can you track his scent, you think?) Liam prompts.
I know I can.
I just don’t want to, because I’m afraid of what awaits me at the end of that trail.
But I still dip my head in a nod, and I say: (Even if I couldn’t find him, I think I could track the key.)
Because when I focus I can still feel it. Like a weird phantom limb or something, I feel it as though it was attached to my leg, pulling me to the east, dragging me faster and faster.
Silver and Shadow (The Canath Chronicles Book 2) Page 17
