Immortal

by Nicole Conway

  I bit back a curse.

  “Now you must tell me, Jaevid Broadfeather,” he stepped in closer and put the point of his sword against my throat again. “Tell me why you came here, if only to satisfy my own curiosity. I should like to know before I cut off your head and use it as my footstool.”

  I reached into my belt and took out a seed—one about the size of a pumpkin seed. I’d been carrying it around for quite some time now, waiting for the right time to use it.

  Now, while I stood at the epicenter of our enemy’s stronghold, was that time.

  I held it out to him in my open palm. “I came to give you this.”

  Hovrid laughed like a maniac and plucked it out of my hand. “Is this some sort of offering? Something you hope to bargain with?”

  I didn’t answer. I was waiting. Every muscle in my body was tense.

  “You’re every bit as stupid as your father before you,” he hissed and crushed the seed in his fist.

  The whole room burst into chaos.

  Out of that tiny seed exploded a monstrous boar, who was every bit as enraged as he had been on the battlefield in Barrowton when I’d captured him. It broke free of my magical prison and sent Hovrid flying across the room before charging headlong for the elite guards. They drew their weapons and rose to attack the beast. Behind me, the dragonriders immediately rushed in to join the fray.

  Arrows zipped through the air. Men shouted. The enormous boar bellowed with fury, using tusks, size, and speed to tear through Hovrid’s ranks. The guard holding those strange clay spheres threw one against the floor. It smashed, and fire burst into the air along with an acrid smell I knew all too well—dragon venom.

  “Felix,” I shouted and leapt to my feet. “Now!”

  He was already moving. He jumped up, sweeping his arms underneath him to get his shackles in the front. Then he took off running for the body of an elite guard that had already been mauled by the boar. He pried the sword out of the corpse’s hand and reared back.

  I dropped to my knees and held my arms out behind me, my wrists as far apart as the chain allowed. One stroke with the sword severed the chain.

  I was free.

  “Go!” Felix yelled over the noise. It looked like his nose was broken. Blood was pouring down the front of his shirt.

  I hesitated, not wanting to leave him here in this mess.

  “Idiot, I said go!” He pointed the sword across the room. “He’s getting away!”

  I spotted Hovrid and one of his elite guards fleeing. They made straight for a hidden doorway tucked into the corner of the throne room and vanished behind it.

  I sprinted after them, seized the door, and flung it wide open. Beyond it, I could see only a few feet down a narrow corridor that led into utter darkness.

  I had no weapon. I had no idea where I was going or what new terror might be waiting for me down that dark passage. I was outnumbered, and there was no telling what traps Hovrid had set for me. Once again, my odds were beyond terrible.

  So naturally, I plunged straight into the gloom without looking back.

  The corridor ahead of me was so small that I had to stoop at an awkward angle as I ran. I heard nothing except my own shuffling footsteps and noisy, panting breaths. I felt like a rat running through a tiny maze, the walls shrinking around me with each step.

  Then, suddenly, the tunnel opened into a small room. I made a fist and squeezed it as tight as I could. I brought it to my lips and breathed into my hand. Green light bloomed through my fingers. As I opened my palm, an orb of light formed and hovered above my hand, shining brilliantly against the darkness.

  The air was colder here. Immediately before me was a staircase leading straight down into pitch darkness. Looking at it made my stomach swirl with anxiety.

  But I could hear footsteps and voices echoing up the stairs, from within the catacombs beneath the castle. Who knew how far those passages went? Or where they went?

  I swallowed. Step-by-step, I descended the staircase. I cursed myself for not thinking to grab some sort of weapon before charging after Hovrid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “You are my weapon,” Paligno’s voice roared through my mind, startling me. It made me trip over my own feet and nearly fall face-first down the stairs. Some weapon I was.

  “You’ve made a huge mistake,” I muttered back under my breath. “You chose wrong. I’m not the right person for this task. I don’t even know what I’m doing down here. Why didn’t you pick someone braver, like Beckah? Or stronger, like Jace? I can barely beat my best friend in a sword fight and you expect me to go head-to-head with Hovrid and win?”

  “No,” came the god’s bellowing reply.

  It was so loud it made me cover my ears—which didn’t help. It’s hard to block out something coming from inside your own head.

  “I expect you to have faith; faith that cannot be broken. Many candidates were considered, but you alone were found worthy. I am Paligno, and I do not make mistakes.”

  I curled my hands into fists. More than anything, I wanted to believe that.

  The shining orb hovered next to me at my bidding, offering guiding light as I reached the bottom of the staircase. Before me was another long hall. I passed by open archways and tunnels on every side. My fingers twitched. I was sweating and nervous, but focused on keeping my pulse calm and steady.

  My focus was breaking. The orb’s light started to wane. But even when I could hardly see my hand in front of my face, I began to sense things around me with much more clarity. There wasn’t anything visual to distract me, so I had to trust my ears and powers to discern where to go. It was bizarre. The further I went, the more aware I became of just how far underground these tunnels were. I sensed the weight of the earth pressing down from above. It thrummed with energy from the surface world like vibrations through a tuning fork.

  I felt Hovrid’s presence, along with that of the god stone. The stone, however, sent raw, unfettered power snapping through the air like tongues of lightning. Every step I took brought me closer, until I could practically feel the heat on my face as though I were walking towards an open furnace. But instead of wincing and turning away, I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

  And then I saw it—light coming from one of the passages to my left. I headed straight for it. The intensity of the god stone’s presence grew until I was pouring a cold sweat. I felt flushed and energized. That was it—the reason my senses were so enhanced. Its presence strengthened me, made me sharper.

  My foot crossed through the doorway to the chamber. I glanced around, and a second later, a searing pain shot through me. I felt a ripping jerk as someone yanked a blade out of my back, right at my shoulder.

  I crumpled to my knees. Pain made my vision go spotty and I could barely breathe. Someone had attacked me—someone whose life-energy I couldn’t sense. They might as well have been invisible.

  The elite guard who had followed Hovrid was on me in an explosion of speed and strength that reminded me of Jace. The light glinted off of the dagger he’d stabbed me with. It was as long as my forearm and dripping with my blood. Through the holes in his white mask, I could see his eyes flicker.

  He lunged again, poised for a killing blow.

  I spun and swept his legs out from under him. He hit the ground hard, and the impact sent his dagger skidding across the floor. I pinned him down and planted a hand on the wooden mask that covered his face. I pushed my power into it, awakening the dormant fibers of the wood. They sprang to life. Roots burst from it, wrapping around his head and spreading over his body.

  The guardsman howled in fury and tried ripping the roots away, but they grew back as quickly as he tore them away. That was bound to keep him occupied for a bit, I hoped.

  I staggered to my feet and scrambled to seize the dagger. It had pierced me through, and warm blood oozed from the open wound. It hurt to move my arm at all.

  I looked for Hovrid. The air was tinged with a metallic, sour s
mell that made me want to retch. The chamber before me wasn’t very big. It was like a vault of stone with a low ceiling and no other passages in or out—a secure place. The perfect place to hide something precious.

  Every flat surface in the room was covered in rust-colored ink. Strange writing in a language I didn’t recognize was scrawled in patterns that swirled from floor to ceiling and back again. It was like a strange, disheveled web.

  And resting in the very center of it, on an intricate gold stand surrounded by small braziers, was the god stone.

  It had been placed in some sort of silver bowl. From where I was standing, I could see that the bowl was filled with a liquid. I was standing too far from it to see exactly what it was. That is, until Hovrid stepped forward from the shadows and dipped his hand into it. It was thick and an unsettling shade of red.

  Blood.

  Hovrid drew his hand out of the blood-filled basin where he was letting the god stone soak. He began licking the blood from his fingertips.

  “For the longest time, I tried to appease Paligno’s curse with my own sacrifices. I thought I might win its approval and cooperation. But coincidently, I stumbled across an interesting fact that made all that fuss completely unnecessary. You see, when a divine artifact touches blood, the blood becomes infused with the power of that artifact. Partaking of that blood grants the drinker that same power, albeit temporarily. So more must be consumed. More, and more, and more. It becomes a need, an addiction. In ancient times they called it sanguimancy—blood magic.”

  “That’s sick,” I snarled at him.

  “Indeed. The rest of the world deems this practice wicked, as well. It was banned from ever being used, stricken from all historical records in the hopes it would never be discovered again. But there is a legend older still about the one who discovered this art. One not unlike you. A god’s mortal pet. The one they called God Bane. Legend has it he discovered this precious procedure and sought to use it to destroy the very god who’d enslaved him.” Hovrid smiled as he wiped his chin of a few droplets and then slurped them into his skeletal mouth. “After a while, it becomes delicious. I’ve found that using the blood of the innocent yields more potent results. I wonder what it could do with your blood.”

  I glanced at my wounded shoulder. Then I raised the dagger, sinking into a defensive stance.

  “Fortunately for me, you don’t have to be alive in order for me to test it.” He surged towards me suddenly, a hand outstretched. From it came a burst of light, an explosion of magical energy that overwhelmed my senses and sent me flying across the room.

  I hit the wall on the other side. My head bounced off the stone, and once again I was seeing stars.

  “Did you honestly believe you were the only one in this world who could do miraculous things with divine power?” Hovrid sneered. “Don’t be so naïve. The stone is mine now. It answers to me alone. That Paligno sent a filthy little halfbreed to do his bidding it utterly pathetic … futile … Insulting!”

  He zapped me again, and this time it felt like my skin was on fire. I flailed my arms to get away. My hands groped for anything to cling to while my soul felt like it was being stretched outside of my body. I couldn’t get my breath long enough to even scream.

  The burning stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I was left lying on my back, staring up at the stone ceiling while my ears rang. I was in shock. I couldn’t move.

  “Take his weapon,” Hovrid commanded. “And cut his throat.”

  I heard footsteps coming closer. It had to be that elite guard. When he leaned down over me, I realized his mask was gone. I could see his face.

  I knew him.

  “L-Lyon?” I rasped.

  His eyes were vacant and dark. His complexion was ashen. When he touched my hand to pry his dagger out of my fist, his skin was as cold as ice.

  No matter how I searched, I couldn’t sense anything living about him. No spirit. No pulse.

  “You can only heal the living, and not even yourself. It’s almost cruel, isn’t it? For Paligno to cripple you so?” Hovrid’s voice was filled with pleasure as he read the horror on my face. “But I can raise the dead, and they make such obedient soldiers. So do the living, as it turns out. One drop of cursed blood and their minds become as useless as mud.”

  It wasn't him. It couldn't be. The Lyon I knew was dead. I had watched him die with my own eyes. His body had been burned on a funeral pyre overseen by his entire family … hadn't it?

  Suddenly, I was on my feet again. I grabbed Lyon’s reanimated corpse, flung him across the room and turned on Hovrid.

  He shrank before me. I saw panic in his eyes. But more importantly, I saw myself—my reflection. My eyes burned like green fire. My teeth flashed like fangs. From my head grew two white horns like those of a stag.

  Hovrid flung his power at me again, screeching with fury.

  I raised a hand, forcing outward with my will. When the two collided, it turned his wicked magic to nothing but mist.

  “You have no idea what divine power is,” I roared in Paligno’s voice, a chorus of whispers from the melded souls of my predecessors.

  Hovrid staggered backward, tripping over the stand and bowl where the god stone was placed. They clattered to the floor, sending blood spraying everywhere and the stone rolling away into a corner. He began screaming again, this time in the elven language. He called me every vulgar name he could think of. He cursed Paligno and all the gods.

  When his back touched the opposite wall, Hovrid realized he had no more room to run. He kept looking behind me, as though he expected someone to come in and save him. Maybe he was hoping some of his undead dragonriders or his prized elite guard would find us just in time.

  This time, he was the unlucky one.

  I seized him by the throat and held him off the ground. He felt so fragile in my hand. With Paligno’s power coursing through my body, I could have crushed him. I wanted to. I was supposed to.

  “Pathetic! You want to kill me—you’ve been ordered to—and still you hesitate!” Hovrid choked as he clawed at my arm desperately. “Sentiment. Weakness. Just like your coward father!”

  I bared my teeth. A growl ripped from my chest that sounded as monstrous as I felt.

  A second too late, I saw the knife. He’d pulled it out of his robes. It was a wicked-looking knife made of white wood—a greevwood knife made by the gray elves.

  He plunged it straight at my heart.

  I should have died.

  That blade was made of the sharpest material in the entire world. It was supposed to be indestructible. A blade that never dulled, that could split iron like butter.

  But the instant it touched my skin, the knife shattered into a million pieces, leaving Hovrid holding nothing but an empty hilt.

  “You swore upon my stone that no member of his household would be harmed by your hand. I hold you to your oath,” Paligno’s voice thundered around us. It shook the foundations of the castle. The earth quaked, making the stones of the room chatter like teeth.

  A deep fissure split open beneath my feet, like the earth’s gaping maw. Hovrid was dangling over it, suspended only by my hand.

  “Deliver him to me,” Paligno commanded.

  The fissure was growing wider by the second, devouring the entire room. Lyon’s corpse was swallowed first. He didn’t even scream. The dead can’t beg for a life they don’t have.

  “No,” Hovrid was pleading over the roaring of the shifting earth. “Don’t do this, please.”

  I hesitated.

  Questions and doubts blurred through my mind. Was this even his fault? He’d only looked at the stone and been driven mad by it. Could he be blamed for every terrible thing he’d done because of that one mistake? What right did I have to be his executioner?

  I looked into what was left of Hovrid’s face and saw what I’d been dreading. I saw my brother. I saw someone my mother had loved, a child she’d carried and raised. I saw how, in another life
, we could have been close. We could have been friends rather than enemies.

  But that wasn’t this life.

  And this wasn’t my choice to make.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  And I let him fall.

  The fissure opened wider, a yawning mouth of the earth, hungry to feed. Far below, I saw a pinpoint of boiling red light. Then the ground began to cave in under my feet. The god stone rolled towards the abyss, teetering on the edge. I dove after it, seizing it in my bare hands. Then I ran—even thought I knew I couldn’t possibly make it. The ground was falling away beneath me. I was too late. The pit was going to swallow the stone and me.

  But it didn’t.

  One step became two, then three, then four. I couldn’t fathom how I was making it to the exit, even as the earth crumbled around me. I glanced down and saw that beneath the places where my feet fell, fragments of rock and soil gathered like hovering stepping stones. They created a floating pathway.

  This was new. None of the whispers had ever told me about anything like this.

  Tucked away into the folds of my cloak, the god stone thrummed with energy and power. Just touching it made me feel like my bones were rattling. I wondered if I was able to draw more power from the stone when I was touching it. I stretched out a hand and decided to test it.

  Instantly, a curved, hovering staircase materialized out of the debris, bringing me up out of the depths to safe ground. But the castle was collapsing, splitting at the foundations. Soon, it would be completely destroyed.

  Unless I did something to stop it.

  I willed the rocks to move around me. I brought forth more and more of them, gathering them around the weak points at the foundation and drawing them in tightly to hold the castle together. Then I willed thick and mighty roots to weave around them like a subterranean net.