The Broken God (Legends of Fyrsta Book 3)

by Sabrina Flynn

  Her eyes blazed. “Fire does not crack.”

  “True, but it can be smothered.”

  “Only to spring to life in another place. It both kills and gives life. I should be more worried of what I would do to you.”

  He smirked. “That is the least of my worries.”

  “You seem to welcome it—death.”

  “I do.”

  The two words were like a dagger through her heart. “You want it, then? You’re not even going to try, are you?” she demanded. “You saw your death and now you’re going to lie down and wait for it.”

  “I am tired.”

  Isiilde shoved him, hard. He hit the rock, and she stepped forward, standing on her toes to glare into his eyes. “I did not give up when Stievin had a collar around me.”

  He opened his mouth, thought better of his words, and then closed it with a click.

  “Please, I beg you,” she said, placing her hand on his chest. “I have never asked anything of you, Marsais. Never. But I am asking this...” Her throat seized, blocking out words.

  Long arms wrapped around her, and she leaned into his heat, listening to a reassuring heart. His lips moved against her hair. “I’ll try, but I can’t make promises. I don’t know how long I have left.” His chest rose, and she with it.

  Isiilde looked up into his eyes, misty and grey in the glow of runes. “I only ask that you try.”

  He nodded.

  “What have you done in the past to stop the visions? Or is it worse than usual?”

  “It’s everything. As I said, I’m cracking.”

  “Why now?”

  “That is an excellent question,” he said with a shudder. And she realized then that Marsais zar’Vaylin: ancient, seer, Archlord, and the most gifted Wise One she had ever known, was afraid.

  A garbled, half-choking bellow shattered the moment. Isiilde’s ears stiffened. The cry came from a camel. The sound was full of panic and pain. The Fomorri.

  She raced back to the grotto, but all was calm. No attackers threatened the night, not from the outside at any rate. A group of Elite soldiers were gathered on the sand. Three men stood over Spot, hacking and cutting at his corpse.

  Another dagger flashed, and Red fell next.

  “No!” she screamed at the men. The dim little camp fires roared. Soldiers and paladins scrambled backwards. Fire crackled around the nymph’s clenched fists, licking at her sleeves.

  A large, hulking shadow blocked her view. “We needed food, Sprite!” The growling voice and endearment conflicted strangely. It gave her pause.

  The men near the camels were frozen, still gripping the dagger, red with the camel’s blood. Death filled her senses, and bile rose in her throat. The gurgling stopped, and Red’s hoof went still. In the after echo of Red’s death cries, the nymph moved forward, taking a step, and another, until she stood over the slaughtered animals.

  Animals. The word mocked her, echoed between her ears. She looked to the soldiers—the humans. What was a nymph to humans but an animal?

  The Elite edged back. All but one. She turned on the sergeant, her fire raged and begged to be free, to lick his flesh and boil his blood. The need made her hands shake.

  Nimlesh straightened. His brows were heavy and his face severe. “It is the way of the desert, Princess Jaal’Yasine. I ordered it.” The commander took responsibility for his men.

  In the blinding rage that threatened, she was vaguely aware of another presence, a familiar man who stood at her side, grim and watchful. Marsais did not interfere, he merely stood silent.

  “Isiilde.” Acacia’s voice cut through the thunder beating against her ears. “The camels would have slowed us down. They can’t climb the rocks.”

  “You could have set them free!” she snapped.

  “Nothing will go to waste,” Nimlesh assured.

  The nymph’s eyes blazed at the man. “Not even a hair?” There was something in her voice; not a growl or a threat, but a cold void that made the commander take a step back. A heavy hand settled on her shoulder, but she shook it off, and moved towards the camels.

  “The Fomorri drive their animals into the ground, Isiilde,” Acacia continued. “There is no room for mercy here. The Fomorri would have taken the camels and used them until they dropped dead.”

  Isiilde looked at the Knight Captain. “No different than every other human.” A muscle in her jaw twitched. “You’ve killed them already. Get on with your harvest.”

  In the dim light, she stood still as stone and cold as ice, watching the humans gut and skin her friends. True to Nimlesh’s word, nothing went to waste, rendering her once affectionate friends into meat for their bellies.

  The smell of cooking flesh drove her to the other side of the grotto, across the dry stream, through the bushes, and past a group of boulders. In the quiet, she sat with her back against the cliff. It wasn’t long before Marsais joined her there. He sat, watching the glow of fire burn through the bushes. He said nothing.

  “Humans take, and take more—anything that their eyes see. But they never give back.” There was a quiet kind of fury in the nymph’s voice, and the man at her side had no answer. Marsais rested his head against the rock, and closed his eyes. A tired sigh swept past his lips.

  A shadow moved in the night, between the rocks. Rivan edged into the little clearing. “I’m not hungry,” he said, hesitant. “Am I interrupting?”

  She shook her head.

  The paladin sat beside her at arm’s length. “I’m sorry, Isiilde.”

  How many times had she uttered the same thing? Looking back, the nymph was no longer sorry for any of it. Humans slaughtered each other and animals without remorse. Why should she feel anything for them?

  “Sorry has never fixed anything,” she said.

  Rivan fiddled with a greave strap. “No, I suppose it doesn’t,” he said softly. “An apology is more like a bridge to someone’s pain—an offer really. It doesn’t mean you have to walk over it; not unless you want to.”

  His words struck her. Rivan was right: pain was like an island, and right now, it was all her own. She had no intention of sharing it.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The night was quiet. Stars shone in the pool of night, and Marsais felt like a fish, gazing at the unknown world above. Isiilde slept nearby, curled in a bed of hot rocks. She had sat for hours, rage rippling off her in waves. It battered his senses, wore down his defenses, and left him weak with grief. Despite all his careful plotting, she had defied reason and her nature, and had appeared on deck. She was on the verge of slipping down a dark path, and he did not know what to do.

  He scanned the stars for portents, a whisper of what was to come, but all was silent. For now. The realm, it seemed, waited for her.

  The wards had not been disturbed, but Fomorri liked to toy, to torture, to draw out the wait. An attack might come tonight, and it might not. Regardless, he had little time. His mind was crumbling, and he needed to know why.

  Marsais slowly rubbed the coins that were threaded through his goatee, listening to their song, letting them soothe his mind. This might be his last chance. Feeling his age, he climbed to his feet and limped across the grotto, aware of the sentries’ eyes following him from the shadows. When he disappeared between the shrubs and rocks, the sentries lost interest. Nothing more than a man headed to answer nature’s call. But that was not his purpose.

  He walked to where Rivan and Isiilde had sat earlier. The fallen boulders offered some privacy, and as he had done in Vaylin, he did now—weaving runes, layering one over the other, creating an orb of drifting threads. Only tonight he took no pleasure in the complex weave.

  When ethereal wisps filled his vision, Marsais stepped into the center of a glowing circle. He stood in the space between time; the pause between up and down, right and left, the catch in a breath. That was where he waited, neither light nor dark, only the vague in-between. It was nowhere and everywhere, and the ancient paced restlessly.

  Another figur
e, cowled in a gleaming white robe, joined him in the space. The new arrival lifted his hands. His fingers were long and fine: a musician’s hands. He pushed back his cowl. The Guardian of Life resembled the dark mahogany statues that littered the realm in his honor.

  “You look like you’ve climbed out of the Pits o’Mourn,” Chaim said.

  Marsais glanced down at himself. Unfortunately, the state of his mind reflected his appearance: battered and bloodied. “Aren’t you full of compliments.” He ran a hand over his hair, sweeping it back, and noticed the lines creasing the god’s brow. “I take it the war in Somnial’s Realm is not going well?”

  “No,” Chaim sighed. “An upstart decided to try and take the Dreaming God’s throne. There is a civil war within a war raging now. Nightmares have been running rampant throughout the realms. I pity the children.”

  The word nightmare triggered a thought. “The ol’River was raided.”

  In reply, Chaim closed his eyes. “Yes,” the god whispered. For a moment, the Guardian’s calm cracked. “But how did you know? Did you have a vision?”

  “Hmm, more like a logical conclusion based on pieces of an unknown puzzle which I do not yet fully understand.”

  Chaim opened his mouth, but Marsais interrupted. He was not ready to discuss the how or why. “Have you received word from Bram and Evie?”

  “I have,” Chaim said. “It seems that Tharios released the Fey. The Isle was obscured by an unnatural fog that delayed their arrival.”

  “The entire Isle?” he asked in surprise. “The castle wards weren’t activated?”

  “They were, but according to Evie there are holes in the shield—frayed edges. The Fey seeped through the cracks.”

  Marsais frowned, and studied his toes. They were covered in ash. “That should be impossible.”

  “That was my thought too, but who knows—as old as that power is, the wards may have deteriorated.”

  “Hengist sacrificed his spirit to guard the Spine,” Marsais said, more to himself than the god.

  “Spirits do fade over time,” Chaim said. “It makes me wonder about the wards surrounding the Bastardlands. Despite the Keeper’s sacrifice, will they deteriorate too?”

  “Hmm.”

  “You’ve had no visions about the Isle and the Fey?”

  “Erm, not precisely.” Marsais waved dismissively. “The Fey are... ever shifting. Time affects them differently. Even in Fyrsta, they move in much the same manner as they do in the Ways, like dreams drifting through an impenetrable fog. Whether or not that is the reason, my visions of this path stop at Finnow’s Spire. How did your guards get through?”

  “Three Wise Ones managed to entrap the Fey’s spirits in the arena.”

  “Ah! Tulipin, I’d wager; goaded by Thira, no doubt.”

  “That’s what I heard,” Chaim confirmed his guess. “Tharios and his Unspoken have barricaded themselves inside the Spine. My scouts are attempting to penetrate the fortress, but that may take time. Are you still in Vaylin?”

  “Fomorri.”

  Chaim blinked. “How?”

  Marsais waved a hand. “I’m sure you do not want to know.”

  The god narrowed his silver eyes. “Have you remembered how to open a Runic Gateway?”

  “Although useful, I’m afraid not.”

  “Did you use Bloodmagic again?”

  “Not I.” Marsais cleared his throat.

  “You had a Bloodmagi open a portal from Vaylin to Fomorri?”

  “To Mearcentia.”

  A muscle in the god’s jaw twitched. “How many ‘cattle’ did you slaughter for that portal?”

  Marsais arched a brow. “So little faith in me.”

  “I have faith that you will do whatever needs doing,” Chaim said with clipped tones.

  Marsais’ lips twitched upwards. “I did, but instead of sacrificing lives, I betrayed a trust. I gave the Bloodmagi a single vial of blood.”

  The Guardian of Life looked at the ancient as if he were mad. “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it?”

  “You would need—” Chaim stopped. Marsais could see thoughts churning in the god’s eyes. And then those eyes pierced him. “You haven’t been completely honest with me, have you?”

  “Honesty is relative to time.”

  “Marsais,” Chaim warned.

  “Your word.”

  The god tilted his head slightly. “You’re wondering if you can trust me.”

  “Do you really want this burden that I have for you?”

  Chaim sighed. “Why not? I already have the Dracken Wood, the Isle of Blight, and Somnial’s Realm that I’m dealing with. What’s one more issue?”

  “Well this one is... delicate. Your mother can’t know.”

  “My word,” agreed Chaim.

  “The moment I bonded with Isiilde I discovered that she is not merely a nymph, but the true daughter of the Sylph. Power in its rawest form flows through her veins, although it is undeveloped at so tender an age.”

  Chaim took a step back as if struck, staggering from the implications. Marsais pressed on. “I cannot stress how important it is that you keep this to yourself. We both know what Zahra would do if she found out, or anyone with a shred of knowledge for that matter. The prize would tempt even the noblest of hearts—even you, Chaim. That’s precisely why Isek betrayed me; unfortunately, he overheard a conversation between me and her father.”

  “The berserker?”

  “Yes.”

  “I take it he is more than he seems?”

  “Of course.” Marsais frowned at the god. “Why else would I drag him out of a gutter?”

  “Amusement? A death wish? Madness? Take your pick. Who is he, then?”

  “He is Ulfhidhin reborn. Don’t you keep track of your spirits, my boy?”

  Chaim rolled his eyes. “Legends are prone to exaggeration.”

  “So they are,” Marsais agreed. “If the realms knew how truly clueless we were, they would all be scared witless.”

  “Still, it’s comforting to know he’s there.”

  “He’s a shadow of what he was. As am I.”

  “You’ve managed so far.”

  “If by managing you mean failing, then yes. Despite my extensive efforts, Isiilde is here in Fomorri.”

  Chaim grimaced.

  “Ah, I see you grasp the danger. I assure you, I had no intention of taking something so precious into the heart of evil. I tried to leave her with Syre on Mearcentia.”

  “What happened?”

  “She snuck on board the ship.” Marsais gave a slight shake of his head. “I thought I knew her; I was wrong. She surprised me.”

  “I didn’t think anyone surprised you.”

  His lip quirked with irony. “I weary of what is already written, and when something new comes along, I groan and complain like a tired old man set in his ways.”

  The god smiled. “Perhaps you need to be shaken.”

  “She’s more akin to the Shattering. I fear what she may become.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You know the story of Pyrderi Har’Feydd, and why he went against his nature. I fear the same of Isiilde. Humans have...wounded her. Severely. And I have inadvertently made matters worse. She is now bonded to her fire and the divide between human and faerie grows each day.”

  Chaim rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What do you mean she’s bonded to her fire? I thought she was with you.”

  “Isiilde and I are no longer bonded. It’s a long story, which I do not want to repeat.”

  Silver eyes flickered to the scar beneath his robes. “Do you think she may be part of some greater plan?”

  Marsais barked out a laugh. “Her very nature is chaos. There is no plan.”

  “I suppose she can’t go against her nature, then.”

  Marsais sobered, mulling over his words. “I suppose not, but still, I worry.” He was tired; he wanted to sit—to rest there in nothingness. “Regardless, if anything should happen to me, swear t
hat you will find her. Help her, please.” His whisper was more fervent than intended. The immense weight of responsibility settled on his thin body. He felt crushed.

  “I swear with all my power that I will find her, now and in the future.”

  Marsais let out a pent-up breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. A bit of weight lifted off his shoulders. “Thank you.”

  Chaim frowned and took a step closer. “I saw you with the Gravedigger. I thought it odd to see you in the grips of the Keening while you were bonded to a nymph. But these revelations certainly explain why you dream of death and nothing more.”

  “Hmm. And how is my maggoty old friend?”

  “Temperamental and territorial as ever. There was a raid on his Graveyard. He did not take it well.”

  “If only we could convince him to fight against the usurpers in Somnial’s Realm.”

  Chaim smiled, wryly. “Death and Life serve no one.”

  Words drifted to his mind—words that Isiilde had spoken: Fire can bring life and death.

  “Nor does Time,” Chaim added.

  “Hmm.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Nothing. What comes will come. That is why I am here.”

  “And here I thought you simply missed me.”

  “I do, actually—miss you, that is. What I would not give for your steady mind right now.” A shudder swept through Marsais’ body.

  The god waited, concern softening his eyes.

  “I’m cracking, Chaim,” he said abruptly. “I do not know how long before this shell is swept away by madness.”

  “But your realm—”

  “Is crumbling. This realm is unraveling.”

  Chaim swallowed, brow furrowed in thought, mind grasping at implications and the unknown on the horizon.

  “I saw something in the maze: a girl and a monster. Both of the Void.”

  Chaim’s eyes widened a fraction. He looked as grey as the air around.

  “You know something,” Marsais surmised.

  Chaim pressed his lips together.

  Marsais tilted his head. “Oh, let me guess—the Sylph?”

  The Guardian looked at his boots. “This girl, what did she look like?”

  “She looked like a Reaper, only—” Marsais cut off, searching the hallways of Time, and all of possibility. “The Sylph is not involved in this, is she?”