by Alana Serra
His daydreaming was cut short by an icy chill that shocked through his stomach. Something was wrong. Dread pulsed through every cell in his body, the hair on his arms standing on end, his runes lighting up with bright blue pulses that matched his speeding heartbeat.
“What’s wrong?” Brunyr asked.
“I don’t know, but I must find Imara.”
That could be the only explanation, to feel something so keenly when nothing was amiss here. Already he rushed toward the Machai pen, getting one of the lesser trained mounts ready for riding. Brunyr had followed him and he held the reins steady as Rheor hefted himself atop the cat.
“I can ride with you,” he offered.
Rheor shook his head. “It may be nothing. Perhaps they’ve come into some trouble on the hunt. Head down the mountain and fetch Elora. Tell her that her sister is partaking in the Binding Ceremony and she wishes her to attend.”
He nodded, standing back from the somewhat temperamental Machai as Rheor got the beast under control. “I will. I’ll be back in a couple of days, hopefully with two humans in tow.”
“I hope so, my friend,” was all Rheor could say as his heels dug into the flank of the Machai.
The under-trained beast let out a growl of protest, but eventually it strode forward, breaking into a full run as Rheor hurried down the slope, following the feelings that raged within him like a winter storm.
It was an apt comparison, as not more than a few miles distant from the mountain’s peak, Rheor was overtaken by a thick fog he couldn’t even begin to see through. He was forced to use his powers, draw it into himself, and survey the forest anew, only to find there was more of that same fog clinging to every inch of his land, far distant through the entirety of the forest and to the edge of the field beyond.
Strangely, though, it seemed to clear there, and Rheor’s blood ran even colder as he realized the implication. Imara had used her power there. That was what he’d felt. The storm that gathered was far from natural—he could only assume that it was coming from her distress. Not bothering with the fog, he raced in the direction of the field, barely avoiding trees and bushes, having to rely on the superior eyesight of his mount to make it through mostly unscathed.
What he saw there stopped his heart.
His people were fighting a flood of Svag. Running them through with spears and swords, caving in their chests and skulls with hammers, filling them with arrows. Yet they kept coming, pushing the Raknari back, overwhelming them like a tide.
He’d never known Svag to be this organized, this resilient, this great in numbers. The ones that had attacked before were mindless beasts, desperate for the magic they needed to survive. These had a sheen to their skin that was not unlike Rheor’s own people, and the implications of that were more than he could currently process.
But somehow that wasn’t even the worst of it.
Distant from the others, half-obscured by the lingering fog, was Imara. She was slumped on the ground, limp and lifeless, a figure standing over her. Rage burned through Rheor and he urged his mount forward, summoning a spear into his right hand.
He rode hard, running down several of the Svag on the outer edge, thrusting his spear into the throats of two more. As he breached the inner circle, he leapt from the Machai, landing on his feet, his free hand helping to brace him. Immediately his head snapped up, his gaze seeking out the Svag who’d hurt his Korun.
What he saw was like nothing he’d ever seen before. A tall, gaunt man with spindly arms and legs stood over her, a cruel grin stretching across lips. His skin was so thin that Rheor could see the veins beneath it, each of them pulsing with the same blue energy as Rheor’s runes. Ice crackled around him, forming not just armor, but a full shield.
“I’m still a bit full from the last one,” the creature said, his voice scraping across his vocal cords, “but if you give me a few moments, I could make room for you.”
Rheor roared with rage and charged the creature, determined to get him as far away from Imara as he could. But the Svag—if that was even what he was anymore—extended a hand and ice shot out toward Rheor with a speed he could only hope to match.
It impacted him with a loud shatter, the spear-like tip ripping through the ice armor he’d managed to summon around himself, each successive impact tearing his skin, drawing his blood in furious bursts.
He staggered, gritting his teeth as he braced himself against the onslaught. Before the Roinim, he might have been able to conjure some kind of defense—as unstable as it would have been—but now the power that flowed through him was not strong enough.
He needed his Korun. He needed Imara.
“What’s wrong, Drotun? Are you finally feeling like someone else out there is simply better than you in every way?”
Rheor needed to get to Imara. He needed to find a way to bring her to consciousness, for he was sure she was only temporarily fallen. She could not be dead. He would have felt it. The entire mountain would have felt it, his grief shaking through all the lands.
He couldn’t reach her now, though. The creature was too close, and drawing closer. He stepped over Imara’s body, walking casually toward Rheor as if he wasn’t afraid of anything. All around them, his men fought their own battles, engaged with an enemy that would not cease.
Instinctively, Rheor knew that whatever this creature was, he wouldn’t be easy to kill. So he didn’t focus on killing him just yet. Pooling his energy, he focused on the ground beneath his feet. A solid cylinder of ice erupted from it, shooting the creature high into the sky. Ten feet. Twenty. Fifty.
With a growl of effort, Rheor released his focus and rushed to his mate. She lay on the ground, unmoving, traces of snow covering her pale skin. Her runes were dormant, a sickly blue that caused his heart to seize in his chest.
She was not dead. She couldn’t be. He would know.
Dropping to his knees beside her, ignoring the fighting that was happening around him, Rheor pulled his Korun onto his lap and tried to wake her. He spoke to her softly, stroked her face, shook her. When she responded to none of that, he bent an ear to her chest to listen for her heartbeat.
It was there. Distant. Thready. But there.
Yet somehow, he still couldn’t reach her.
“Imara. Come back to me, my Korun,” he whispered, his head bent over hers. “I need you. I love you.”
Chapter 23
Imara was outside Brittlewood again, climbing one of the tallest trees to get a better view of the forest.
Her boots scraped against the bark, the spiny, spindly limbs of the tree snagging her clothing. The calluses that had long-formed on her hands aided her now and she was able to grip the itchy, sap-covered junctions of the branches with little trouble, hoisting herself up one rung, then another.
“Be careful!”
She looked down, seeing Elora far below her. Younger than she remembered. She was twelve or thirteen, her eyes wide with worry, her hair done in those ridiculous pigtails Mother had insisted were adorable.
“I’m always careful.” Imara flashed her a grin and continued, wedging her boot in the Y formed by a pair of branches.
Higher and higher she climbed, until the air began to thin, the mist of the clouds seeming to reach her. The trees surrounding Brittlewood weren’t quite that tall, but this high up, she felt like she was at the top of the world. Holding onto a sturdy branch with one arm, straddling another, she peered out over the forest, searching for their quarry.
She’d gone on this hunt for Elora. It was the beginning of spring, the smell of blooming flowers perfuming the air, and she’d told her sister the foxes had new kits. Only she hadn’t been able to find any of their dens on the ground, so—not wanting to break a promise to show her sister the baby foxes—she’d climbed the tallest tree she could find to see as much of the forest as possible.
A strong wind blew from the north. Imara glanced toward the mountain and that icy peak that always seemed to loom over her. The tree she was in bowed and swayed w
ith the wind, and Imara had to cling to the branches to keep from falling.
“Are you okay?!” her sister called, half frantic.
“I’m fine. Just a little ride.”
Steadying herself, Imara looked out over the forest again, using one hand to shield her eyes from the bright sun. She could see everything from this vantage point. All of the deer that walked the forest, the hares that darted from the underbrush, and—just as she’d hoped—a fox den, with one tiny kit poking its head above the surface.
“I see them!” she grinned, excitement threading through her as she prepared to climb down.
She was sixteen, but these things never ceased to amaze her. She scrambled down the tree with the speed of someone who was well practiced, moving from branch to branch.
But a chill wind swept through again, right as she went to lower herself to another set of branches. The tree swayed and Imara lost her handhold, then her footing. Time seemed to slow as she fell backward, down, down, never-ending.
Until her back hit the hard-packed ground, all the breath forced from her lungs in one painful blow.
“Oh, God! Immy!”
Elora was at her side in an instant, dropping down to her knees, her satchel thrown to the ground. She rifled through it, pulling out a parchment-wrapped bundle of herbs. As she rolled them in her hand, the oils staining her skin green, Imara’s nose burned at their pungent scent.
“I’m fine,” she groaned. “I don’t need—”
Before she could finish, Elora had shoved the bundle of herbs into her mouth. “Bite down.”
She shot her sister a death glare, but did as she asked. Bitterness flooded her mouth with a strong aftertaste that Imara likened to the solution her parents used to strip paint from the walls. A full-body shudder overtook her, but miraculously, the pain was gone. She looked up at Elora, hearing her speak, but not able to see her features. They were blurred, just a wash of peach and auburn. She squinted, wondering if she’d somehow damaged her eyes in that fall. It seemed ridiculous, but maybe she’d hit her head on the ground.
When her vision cleared, she didn’t see Elora. She saw Rheor. He was hunched over her, his brow drawn in concern, his lips moving, but speaking no words that Imara could hear. She tried to reach up and touch his face, to reassure him that she was all right, but pain shot down her spine, traveling to each of her limbs. Fatigue followed soon after, rendering her body utterly useless.
“I…” She couldn’t even summon the energy to speak.
Was she… dying? Her conscious mind began to surface and she remembered what happened. She’d been with a hunting party and they’d been ambushed. She’d fought alongside the Raknari, but one of the Svag had gotten to her. She could still feel the icy chill of his long fingers around her neck. She tried to thrash, to chase away the memory, but her body just wouldn’t move.
Focusing on Rheor, she felt tears sting her eyes at the sheer helplessness she felt. He was so close, but he felt a million miles away. She watched his lips, tried to read the sounds they were forming, and finally she could hear him.
“Imara. Come back to me, my Korun. I need you. I love you.”
Her heart clenched in her chest, swelling with so much emotion she couldn’t contain it all. She wanted to let it out, and she opened her mouth to do just that, but her voice was gone. Stolen by the howling winds that surrounded them. She couldn’t tell him. She was dying, and she couldn’t tell him that she loved him, too.
Tears fell freely down her cheeks. She felt so weak. A Raknari would never have succumbed to this. She should have been prepared for an attack. She should have insisted Rheor come with them. Now she was going to get all of them killed, just because he’d trusted her with something he shouldn’t have. No one should ever trust her to lead. She was terrible at it. Stupid. Selfish. Reckless. Self-important girl who didn’t know what was good for her.
“Cease your wallowing, child.”
A woman’s voice cut through her self-pity, clear and vibrant. It was the sound of glass tinking against glass, of a crystal cavern echoing the winter wind. There was something cold about it, but that coldness cut through the haze and forced her to pay attention. She looked up, expecting to find Rheor again. Instead, she saw a woman she instinctively knew.
She was tall and slender, her blue skin rimed by frost, her bright blue eyes piercing in their intensity. Her white hair was done into two braids that were arranged in a crown around her head, ice crystals holding them in place. She wore shimmering blue robes that were so sheer Imara could see her body through them. Every inch.
She flushed and tried to look away, but found she couldn’t. This woman wouldn’t allow it. Kiova wouldn’t allow it.
“I’m not yet done with you,” she said simply, a glint in her eyes. “Rise again, and do not squander my gifts.”
Leaning down, the woman brushed her lips over Imara’s. They were cool, but soft, and when she closed her eyes, she could imagine they were Rheor’s. When she opened them again, she found that they were Rheor’s. He was holding her half on his lap, just as he had been in her… dream? Vision. She didn’t know what to call it.
Reaching up, she found she could touch him now. He was real. Solid. Surprisingly warm beneath her fingers. But he stopped kissing her once she moved, his eyes flying open in surprised joy.
“You’re alive.”
She was. She hadn’t realized how close she’d come to not being alive, but being visited by a goddess made it clear she’d approached the border between life and death. She’d been sent back, clearly, and she knew her purpose. Find that Svag and kill him before he could use Kiova’s powers for more evil.
“We have to kill that Svag,” she said, the clarity of her task overwhelming her. “That’s the only way this will stop.”
If they didn’t, the sheer numbers were going to overwhelm them, along with the other Raknari and the Machai. There would be many deaths here, all of them on Imara’s hands. She wasn’t going to take that with her to the afterlife.
Rheor nodded, resolute, and she saw a note of pride in his eyes. She smiled up at him, caressing his face, but then let her hand drop so she could push herself up. He needed to know how she felt, but they needed to live through this first. Once she was out of his lap, Rheor stood, offering her a hand to hoist her to her feet. She swayed once, but steadied herself with his help.
“Are you certain you—”
“Kiss me again,” she said, her hand moving to his chest, up to his neck, fingers curling at the nape.
He obliged, kissing her with a ferocity that made her toes curl in her boots. God, if they weren’t in the middle of fighting an ultra-powerful Svag and his endless band of minions, she would have gladly climbed him like that tree in her dream. Instead she focused on the kiss, drew from it and felt herself growing stronger; steadier. Power flowed through her and she pushed it back into Rheor in turn, as if they were undergoing another, smaller form of Roinim.
When she drew back, she couldn’t see anything other than him. And not in the metaphorical sense. The storms had returned, but this time she got the impression that they were of their own making, not controlled by the Svag. She parted from Rheor, looking around for her bow. When she couldn’t find it, she held out her right hand and imagined a large, strong, flexible bow. It appeared there, made of smooth ice that she was able to wrap her fingers around without feeling the expected burn.
A quiver followed, strapped to her back, and she pulled out an ice arrow, nocking it in her new bow. Rheor summoned a spear, standing not in a way that was meant to hover over her and protect her from the front, but in a trusting position at her back. He would cover where she could not, as she would do for him. She truly was his equal, just as she’d said. And right now, she felt like it.
“I can’t see the others through this at all,” she said, the one downside to the storm that currently sheltered them at the center of its vortex.
“They will hold until they can hold no longer,” Rheor assured her
. “The best thing we can do for them now is to kill the one organizing the Svag.”
As if on cue, that disembodied voice said: “Now that’s curious. I drained you of everything you had to give, and yet you’re still making use of Kiova’s blessing.”
Just like before, the sound danced all around her, thrown about the storm, assaulting her from all sides.
At her back, Rheor growled. “Show yourself!”
“How does it feel to be the powerless one, Drotun? To know that you are outmatched?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he shot back.
The voice laughed, circling around them once more. There was no way to pinpoint it. All of her senses were conflicting with each other, her sight telling her one thing, her hearing telling her another. All she could think to do was eliminate one of those things. It was a tactic she’d used when hunting to good effect, and she closed her eyes now, focusing on what she heard.
Someone was darting through the storm. She could hear the wind hitting his body, the impact of ice shards striking against his armor.
“There!” she called, as she loosed the arrow she’d been holding.
A grunt sounded from the edge of the vortex, the arrow striking true. The Svag laughed, darting away from the space he’d occupied as she nocked another arrow.
“Impressive. For a human.”
The taunts fell on deaf ears as Imara tried to focus on where he was moving. His armor made a certain sound, ground together in a certain way as he rushed from place to place. At her back, she felt Rheor tense, energy coiled in his body. He could hear it too, and when the Svag leapt from the abyss that surrounded them, he was ready. She turned to see him hold his spear up to block, his leg kicking outward, boot hitting the Svag square in the chest and forming a fissure in his armor that snaked down to his abdomen. Imara followed up with another arrow, the tip striking the armor at his shoulder, but shattering that entire section in the process.
