Isiilde shifted on the packs. “I’m fine, but I’ll switch if I get tired,” she promised. Truth be told, her back ached, and her arms hurt, but she didn’t want to take her hand away from his chest.
“Why do you always put your hand over that scar?” Acacia had drifted back, and now walked beside Rivan.
“It seems to help,” she confided.
The captain’s brow wrinkled. The cryptic answer was not enough. “How so?”
Isiilde took a breath. “The scar pains him constantly. On most days, it’s like a brand against his flesh. I don’t know how he tolerates it. When I touch it—the pain leaves.”
“How did he get that wound?” asked the captain.
“The Shattering,” she answered
Acacia’s brows shot up. “But it’s fresh. The scar barely looks a year old.” The captain looked to Oenghus for an answer.
He shrugged. “I can’t heal it. And I don’t suggest you try to heal that wound or any he sustains, unless you are feeling reckless. His spirit and body are so fractured that it’s easy to lose your way.”
“I already did—heal him that is. In Vaylin. I’ve never seen anything like it.” The Knight Captain shivered despite the heat. “I got out of there as soon as I could.”
“Aye, it’s like trying to piece together a shattered mirror.”
“Why is that?” Acacia asked.
Oenghus adjusted his turban with a jerk. “Have you ever healed a madman before?”
Acacia thought about this for a moment. “Aren’t all men mad?”
Oenghus rumbled out a laugh. “Point taken. But I’ve healed mad men and women before. Their mind is all jumbled, and I think it drives a wedge through their spirit. As ancient as his spirit is... let’s just say there’s a whole lot of him to break.”
The bluntness with which he spoke quickened the nymph’s heart. She tightened her hold on Marsais, and pressed her face against his back.
The Mad Archlord. One did not get that title without reason.
Acacia eyed the seer. There was no pity, no fear or judgment, but a calculating glint to the captain’s eye. After a thoughtful minute, she quickened her pace to join her lieutenant.
Long hours passed before Marsais stirred. “You must be miserable supporting these old bones,” he murmured.
“Are you feeling any better?” she asked against his ear.
“I find your breasts pressing against my back very restorative.”
She snorted, and he shifted, taking his weight off of her. He looked over his shoulder, lips twitching upwards.
“You look terrible, Marsais.”
“I’m alive,” he sighed.
“Did you have another vision?”
He was silent for a time. She feared the window of lucidity had shut on her again. “I’m not sure,” he finally said.
Isiilde waited for him to expound, but he did not, and he looked so exhausted that she did not have the heart to press him. Instead, he brought up his hand, slipping it beneath his robe to cover her own. His touch sent a thrill through her veins, leaving her toes tingling. Careful fingertips traced her knuckles, every line and curve, and the tender hollow of her wrist, as if he were memorizing every detail, reassuring himself that she was real. Her ever-burning fire was intense, but his touch was different; more like a warmth that wrapped around her bones. She wanted to melt into the man. And as they fell into a peaceful silence, Oenghus stomped towards the front of the line, giving them privacy.
At sunset, Nimlesh called a halt, ordering his men to make camp.
“We’re not walking through the night?” Isiilde asked the Elite sergeant.
Nimlesh gave a single shake of his head. She opened her mouth to ask why, but Oenghus spoke first. “I’m tired of walking.”
“Really?” Her father could outrun a horse without being winded.
“Aye.” Sapphire eyes flickered to Marsais.
Thank you, Isiilde mouthed the words. She was not the only one who was worried.
Fire flickered under the stars. It smelled like camel dung, but it was warm, and the sand retained the long day’s heat. Marsais stretched on a blanket, propped on an elbow. A cycle of runestones waited for her next move. It was the set that Isiilde had been using to teach Rivan in Vaylin. She nudged the life rune into an inner circle, moving it closer to light.
“It’s your move.”
“Hmm?”
She pointed at the game of King’s Folly. Voices came and went in the dark, and occasional snatches of soft laughter—sometimes louder when Oenghus was involved. The soldiers had their own island of firelight, giving the seer and nymph a wide berth.
“We don’t have to finish,” she said.
Marsais shook his head. He placed an exacting finger on the steel rune, sliding it towards a power rune. “Earlier today, you asked me if I’d had a vision.”
“You said you weren’t sure.” The confusion was plain in her words.
“Not precisely a vision, but many things.” Marsais hesitated, and when he spoke again, his voice was thready, a soft murmur that she strained to catch. “After the Shattering, as I’ve told you before, I went mad. There was no order, no law for a very long time. I was...” He faltered. “In the chaos that followed the Shattering, there was a tribe of sorts that banded together. Terrible men who took what they wanted, and slaughtered those who resisted. They killed my daughter, eventually.” Silence fell, his eyes dimmed, and he looked so very far away.
Isiilde reached across the runes and gripped his hand. His fingers moved of their own accord, brushing her wrist, and his eyes slowly focused, returning to the present.
“You might say, I was the leader’s pet seer—not unlike the girl who the Ardmoor kept chained in their fortress.”
A shiver clutched her bones, and she drew closer, wrapping her cloak firmly around her shoulders. Marsais did not need pity; he needed her to listen. And so she did, biting her own tongue to keep from raging against men who were no doubt long dead. To give him time, she swept in, stealing the power rune with her stone. It swirled to life, binding together to create something more.
“Eventually, a cleric rescued me. He removed my collar, fed me, clothed me, restored my dignity, but my mind...” He gestured to his head. “Let us say that I did not even know my own name, or that I was a man and not a beast.” He touched a stone, tracing the rune that swirled on top of it. Spirit. Thinking better of this, he switched runes, moving steel from an inner circle, a stronger cycle, to her outer, crushing her powered stone.
Isiilde reassessed the cycles. He had left her fire wide open.
“But even under the cleric’s care, I drifted in visions: past, present, future. I could not tell one from the other.”
To distract herself, she moved her fire, stacking it with wind—a powerful combination, and her favorite strategy. “How did you find your way back?”
“The cleric helped me build a place to catalog memories and visions. A mental exercise of a sort.” Of a sort. It sounded like when he said ill occurrences. The two words really did not convey the extent of destruction that a mishandled weave caused. Isiilde knew this fact well. A single Hmm from Marsais could mean that the realm was coming to an end.
“A place?” she nudged.
“A maze of hallways, lined with doors.” Eyes flickered to hers, no doubt gauging her reaction. It certainly sounded like insanity. “Each door holds a memory, a moment, or vision. It made way for the now. If I want to retrieve a memory, I must find the correct hallway, and open the door.”
“You mean you pretend to walk them?”
“I see the future, and I see the past as sure as I see you now. I’m not sure there is such a thing as pretending where I am concerned.”
“When you’re dreaming then,” she realized. “You walk the maze?”
“Yes.” His eyes shone over the cycle of runes. He moved his ice over steel. It slid to the side, falling on the life rune. The cycles shifted. His ice was poised to take her Queen. “Onl
y now, the corridors are crumbling. I do not know how much time I have left.”
The nymph’s heart stopped. And then lurched, trying to gallop out of her chest. She swallowed, steeling her voice. “Until you go mad?”
He inclined his head.
Isiilde pressed her lips together. She placed a finger on her roaring fire rune, and ruthlessly melted his ice rune. But the move cost her. It weakened her runes, separating the wind from fire.
Marsais merged water with her wind, capturing the rune stone and adding it to his own cycle. Her fire was surrounded.
“Can this cleric help you again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Doubtful,” she agreed.
He looked up, surprised.
“You’re quite mad, Marsais. You always have been.”
A chuckle rasped uncomfortably from his chest. It was tight at first, and then it bubbled like a brook. “You smooth-tongued fiend.” He clucked his tongue, but the mention of fiend cast a shadow over his humor. However, the reminder of Saavedra did not spoil the moment; it only filled her with anger—directed at the fiend.
In the past, the nymph would have charged his steel rune with her fire, giving it the strength to flee, and that’s what he counted on—that she would leave her Queen vulnerable.
Isiilde touched her fire rune, and pushed it towards his wind and water. The runes sizzled and steamed, and then dissolved with a hiss. A steam rune materialized and the wind blew it to another cycle—in the path of his Queen. Steam hit flesh, and the rune dissolved.
Marsais stiffened. Slowly, he sat up, eyes darting over the board, replaying the sequence of defeat in his mind. He met her gaze, and his eyes were wide and full of disbelief. “You sacrificed your fire rune.”
“No,” she said. “I won.” And then the nymph reached over the cycle of runes, and grabbed what was left of his severed goatee. The three coins woven in the hair were warm to the touch. She leaned forward until her nose was nearly touching his. “Listen to me, Marsais. You are mad. I have always known that, and I love that about you. Because when I’m with you, I feel normal—everyone stares at the madman instead of the nymph.”
Marsais blinked rapidly. His lips parted, slack-jawed. She had robbed him of the ability to speak. A rare thing.
“If you forget me one day, I will still know you. Do not think I have forgotten your vow to me the night we bonded. You told me that you would hold it for as long as I wished. So don’t try to feign memory loss on that promise, because you’ve not escaped that horrid Fate.”
“I will not inflict this on you,” he whispered.
“Does your word no longer mean anything?”
“Did it ever?”
“Now you’re being childish.”
“Blast it, Isiilde, I’ve given you freedom. You are not bound to me, or any other man. We bonded under terrible circumstances—you had no other choice.”
“I wanted you,” she insisted. “If not then; later.”
Marsais was shaking his head. “It is my age,” he argued. “Nymphs are attracted to experience. That is all.”
She scoffed. “You forget your own stories. You told me that sometimes a nymph refused to bond with a Druid, despite his years. You were not the only long-lived man on the Isle.”
Backed into corner by reason, he pressed his lips together.
“We are friends. You understand me, and I you,” she said softly. “Why do you think it impossible that I could love you? Do you think so little of yourself? Can you see no hope of happiness in your future?”
“I cannot,” he stated.
She smiled, sadly. “Then let me imagine one for you.”
“I am not meant for you, Isiilde.”
“I am free,” she said. “I make my own Fate. Your visions mean nothing to me.”
Marsais did not answer immediately. His eyes grew distant, and when he spoke, his words were full of pain. “My visions are hard for me to ignore.”
“Not when you are with me.” Her eyes danced with mischief. “Regardless, with your vast control and superior mind, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble resisting me.” Isiilde kissed him, hard and long, until the realm fell away. And then she released him, sitting back. “Stop trying to protect me,” she warned.
He remained frozen, poised over the board. The rest of the camp had stopped, eyes on the seer and nymph. She did not care.
“You’re cruel.”
She preened. “I know.”
Marsais shook himself, but he did not sit back, he lent forward, rising on all fours, until his lips were tantalizing close. His white hair fell forward, veiling the two from prying eyes. “You’re wrong, you know.”
“What about?”
“The reason people stare at me.”
The corner of her lip raised. “Enlighten me.”
His gaze drifted to that spot, the corner that held her smile. “People don’t stare at me because I’m mad. They’re jealous of my luxurious hair.”
The nymph laughed, a sound that trickled like cool water over the sands. “I don’t think so,” she smiled.
“Why, then?” His voice was light and whimsical, and she found that she had sorely missed the sound of his happiness.
“I think they’re staring at your muscular backside.”
“That must be it,” he said dryly, sitting back. But his eyes danced as he held her gaze for a long moment.
Marsais looked down at the runes and that twinkle in his eyes vanished. “Why did you sacrifice your fire rune?” No hint of humor softened his voice now. It was as steely as the rune that had cornered her. The nymph was well accustomed to his sudden mood changes, as he was to hers. She kept pace.
Isiilde looked at the runes: the lone power rune, and Life and Death, which served no one, and finally to the bit of ash on the board. “I didn’t sacrifice anything. I simply let it go.”
Marsais sat cross-legged, staring at a dance of flame. Isiilde curled around the smoldering fire pit. Without complaint she had placed hot stones around her body and went to sleep in the chill. In his eyes, those stones sprang up like a wall around the nymph. It towered over the camp, casting a long shadow over the humans—over the entire realm.
In that instant, the nymph, the fledgling goddess, was alone with her fire. A moment passed, and the wall broke into pieces, raining down ash and brimstone. Marsais had learned through painful trial and error not to react to a vision. His hasty actions had slaughtered more than he cared to remember. So he only sat, watching the glowing storm of wreckage.
When the brimstone touched his nose, it melted, dripping down his skin, pooling on the ground. Ice spread over sand, a long solid layer, creaking towards the mountains.
“Madness,” he spoke to no one and everyone, for all of time. Abruptly, he stood. Long legs stretched, racing over ice and brimstone. Marsais walked into the night, through visions that shifted like the dunes.
The ice cracked and shattered—not unlike his mind. When the sand drank the water, he stopped. A flat barren land stretched into darkness under a silver moon. His mind wavered, rippling like a mirage. He waited for a span of heartbeats. Nothing changed. This was the now and where, with a silver moon staring down at him like a cat’s eye.
A presence brushed his shoulder, and he spun. Pinpricks of fire dotted the distant horizon. Had he come that way? Where was he now?
Visions roared on the edges. Darkness burned; death, screams, ruin; a blade poised against his throat. The ground opened, and swallowed him whole. He fell into an ocean. Waves rose, devouring cities, drowning life. The water receded, revealing a forest of frozen humans. And over it all, a nymph sat on a black throne, calm, serene, and so very cold. A heart of ice beat in her breast.
Marsais sank to his knees.
Visions battered at his defenses, assaulted his eyes. He fought for air, breath came sporadically, small gasps that pressed against his ribs. He clutched his head, trying to hold it together and keep his skull from splitting—to keep the last thread of
his sanity from unraveling.
Time pushed him to the ground. “Grant me peace,” a voice begged. It was another’s voice and his, and of all the dead, whispering from the ages.
Grief and fear washed over the ancient. He pressed his head to the sand, and wept. A large hand reached through the veil of anguish and settled on his shoulder. In time his tears ran dry and his visions stilled. And Oenghus remained long after, as steady and patient as the earth.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Zoshi clutched the wall. His backside was too sore to scoot, so he risked hobbling down. Step, hop, steady; step hop, steady—ping. Zoshi stopped, listening. Had he imagined the sound?
The boy thrust his hand in his pocket, and brought out a pebble. Holding his breath, he held the rock over the edge and let it fall. Seconds ticked. Ping.
He nearly shouted in triumph, but swallowed it back. Instead, the boy sat down and poked his head over the edge of the stairway. The glowing moss in his hand was too bright. He tucked the moss carefully away, and looked over the side again.
A faint dull blue lingered in his eyes. He blinked, craned his neck, and stared into blackness, then looked back down. The blue hue was still there. It was like looking down a long, narrow well. He was close, so very close, to—something. Blowing out a long breath of relief, he retreated to solid stone and put his back against the wall.
What would he find at the bottom of the well?
Hopefully a door. But Zoshi didn’t want to hope too much. Hope had never done a thing for him. He rummaged around his pockets and retrieved some dried moss. It was edible, and as appetizing as the stew his mother used to make out of fish bones and old vegetables. All in all, Zoshi had had worse. He ate every last bit of the moss. It had filled his belly these past... The boy drew a blank there.
He shook confusion from his mind. With the wall of dim light so near, his eyes adjusted to the dark. Stone stairs stretched down and around. He had been right—the stairs curved. Zoshi stood, steadying himself on the wall. The swelling in his ankle had gone down enough to lace up his boot. Gritting his teeth, he put weight on the foot. The pain wasn’t sharp; he was on the mend.
The Broken God (Legends of Fyrsta Book 3) Page 21
