It spun through the air, but Lila only laughed, snatching it out of the air even as it spun. Marielle didn’t wait to see what she would do next. She needed to move while Lila was distracted. She drew her dagger and lunged forward all at once, dodging around the bed and trying to dodge around Lila.
Tamerlan’s hand reached out and plucked her up into the air as easily as the other hand had plucked the spinning hammer from the air. He knocked the knife from her hand with one blow of the hammer, and drove her forward, slamming her down on the soft feather mattress of the bed, face first. She tried to sputter, but he held her tight to the bed with one hand as another worked on something. After a moment she felt her boot tugged off and something tied around her ankle. She tried to kick, but it cinched tight to one of the four posts of the bed.
He flipped her over and then deftly tied her other foot with one hand while he held her down despite all her thrashing. Had he always been so strong? When he was himself, he was nothing but gentle. He was like a songbird hopping along a rail, barely leaving a mark in the snow.
Lila caught her eye and laughed harshly. “He wastes this strength. What’s the point of being powerful if you don’t use it?”
“If you don’t exploit people, you mean?” Marielle threw the words at her.
“If you don’t lay waste to every enemy, plunder all their wealth and pluck their cities from their fingers like grapes from the vine.” Her cruel smile twisted Tamerlan’s face and then Lila pulled the crown from his wrist where it had been dangling like an over-large bracelet and jammed it over Marielle’s head. “You can wear this while I kill you. Don’t worry, I’ll do it quickly and at least you’ll have what you came for.” Her grin widened. “See? I’m the merciful kind of villain.”
“You don’t have to be a villain,” Marielle said through trembling lips. “You could be the hero of this story.”
Lila laughed.
“Tamerlan believed that once and look where it brought him. We were always the villains, Marielle. We were villains since before we were Legends. It was only the wishes of storytellers and bards that ever made us seem like anything else. Isn’t it funny? Like a little joke between you and me and Ram and Tamerlan? Because we’re the only ones who know it. Your mother certainly doesn’t. She’s begging for the chance to be an avatar – if only a temporary one. But don’t worry about that, either. Once she has a taste of us, she’ll be so addicted to the magic that she won’t stop. Just like Tamerlan. And we’ll ruin her life just like we ruined his. We can call it your revenge if you think that will make you feel better. But before that, I’m going to make you an avatar and put you in one of those cages your mother keeps birds in. I think that feels fitting. In just a few hours, you’ll be over the Bridge here with us. And maybe, if you’re really lucky, you might see your Tamerlan again – in a mirror when you take over his body against his will.”
Marielle thought she was going to be sick, as Lila fought her arms, forcing one into a loop she had ready in a length of silk. She caught Marielle’s hand, cinching the tie in place.
“Please,” Marielle begged. “Please, Tamerlan. If you ever loved me ...”
There wasn’t a shred of pity in her husband’s eyes as he got the next rope ready. This wasn’t working! She wasn’t ready to die like this!
She had to think of something...
24: Crown
Tamerlan
No rest. No sleep. No chance.
He’d hammered at mental walls until he couldn’t fight anymore.
He’d tried to stop looking, but his eyes never closed.
He’d prayed to any god he remembered.
He wished – more than anything – that he’d begged Marielle to kill him while she still could. Or Jhinn. Or Etienne.
If he had his own hands available, he’d do it himself. Without regrets.
If only Jhinn had hit harder, he might have killed Tamerlan. Why hadn’t he hit harder?
But there was no room for resentment in this pool of living despair. There was no room for rage. No room for agony. Only desperate, swirling, unending despair forever and ever eating his soul from the inside like a cancer.
He couldn’t even breathe on his own – couldn’t even suck in sweet oxygen. Couldn’t stop Ram or Lila when they pushed his body far past the limit. Not when Ram jumped from the tail of the dragon while it swooped low, falling nearly a hundred paces into the river. Not when they refused to let him sleep, merely switching off who had control of him while the other rested, pushing his body in an endless roil of motion.
None of that was anything compared to this. It was a sweet kiss of life compared to the feeling in his heart when Marielle stepped into the room. It was the warm summer breeze compared to how his heart broke when his hands caught her and held her, when they tied her up like an animal, when his ears ignored her pleas and his lips – traitorous lips! – formed a cruel smile.
He tried to scream from within, but no sound came. He pounded and battered against walls too high now to penetrate. Lila and Ram had learned from the past. They’d learned how to keep their focus perfect so there was never a crack to exploit.
He grabbed Marielle’s arm, fitting the loop over it and tying it while his other arm kept her pinned. He was howling inside.
Let me out, Lila! Let me out!
She would pay for this! They all would pay!
They’d stopped talking to him now that they had his body to use. Stopped even acknowledging that he’d ever been there. Maybe his soul was gone, and he just didn’t know it.
There was no hope of ever escaping them, and yet he pounded and battered. Not this! Please, not this!
Marielle caught his eye and his heart broke at the depths of her deep, purple eyes. She was so vulnerable. So fragile. And he was going to murder her with his own hands – heart of his heart, life of his life.
His soul felt like it was ripping in half.
And then, her unbound hand moved like a snake in a direction Lila hadn’t anticipated, wrenching the crown from her head and flinging it against the stone wall. It hit with a clatter, one of the gemstones flying off and tumbling across the thick rugs piled on the bedroom floor.
Lila spun toward the wall, heart in her throat. There was a crack as her fear surged. Tamerlan pushed against the crack with all his might, flexing, shoving ...
And like pushing through a stone wall that seems impenetrable but then crumbles, he went surging in, his mind taking over his body and shoving Lila aside.
“Marielle,” he gasped, his lower lip quivering as he sucked in a sweet breath. He leaned in, stealing a fierce kiss. But there was no time to savor it. Hurriedly, his hands fumbled at her ties.
“Is that actually you?” she asked, tentative, afraid.
Lila and Ram were both battering at his mind. He clenched his teeth against them and shoved the barriers up as hard and strong as he could. It wouldn’t be enough – but perhaps it could be for just long enough.
“It’s me, Marielle, my sweet love. Oh, heart of my heart. Life of my life.” He had her other arm free. He hurried down the bed, tearing at the binding around her foot. Kissing her ankle as he worked, her foot, her calf, anything, everything. “I’m here for now, but you must bind me. As soon as we get you free.”
There. Her foot was free. He tore at the binding on the other foot as Ram and Lila bashed at his inner walls. He could feel them weakening.
“Marielle, I’m so sorry.” He was babbling and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop it. “I’m sorry that I almost killed you. I’m sorry that all this burden is on you. I should have been there to bear it with you.”
“Tamerlan, it’s okay. It’s all okay.”
“It’s not. I can never make up for it.” His hands were shaking. He drew his sword and flung it away and then leaned in to tear his lips across hers, to taste her sweet lips one more time. Oh, she was sweet, she was life. One last kiss, fiery and filled with every desperate hope he’d ever had that wouldn’t come true. “You have to bi
nd me. No. You have to kill me – as quickly as possible. Before any of this can get worse.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” she was half-sobbing as she said it. Somehow, she was in his arms, sweet softness and the scent of flowers and woman. She melted him from the spine outward. Her breath was soft on his face as she cupped it in her hands and whispered. “I love you, Tamerlan, I love you. I thought I’d lost you. Oh, sweet dragons, I’m happy to see you. Please, please be sane.”
He wanted to relax into her arms and just let her take his despair for a moment, but there was no time. Even as she covered his face and neck in frantic kisses, he could feel Ram nearly breaching his walls.
He had to give her something. Something before he was gone forever. He held her tenderly, tucking his head down to kiss her as thoroughly as he could – one last gift – before begging her.
“Please, Marielle.” They were both kneeling in a mess of bedcovers. His words came out in a frantic rush. “Please, you must tie me up. Indulge me in this one thing. I’m nearly gone again, and I don’t want your death on my hands. Please!”
She nodded determinedly, grabbing the silken belts and making quick work of binding his hands. He breathed a sigh of relief. Her knots were tight and firm.
“Tie me to the bed. I don’t dare underestimate them.”
She nodded and complied, but the look on her face as like a shipwrecked sailor who had spotted land. She couldn’t tear her eyes from him.
“I love you, Marielle,” he said gently. “Please don’t forget that.”
“I won’t,” her voice broke as she tied her last knot.
“And now, my sweet wife,” he said, trying to convey with a smile all his affection and loyalty in a single look. “And now, comes the time where you must end me. In a moment, you will hammer that crown to smithereens, and Lila will be gone, and the dragon will rise – just as you and I hope. And when that happens, I won’t be able to keep Ram away. And he will take me over for the rest of my life. And it will be no life. If he can, he will do worse things to you than Lila ever would. Please, do this for me, Marielle. One last mercy. One last gift.”
Marielle’s face hardened. Good. She was ready.
“Thank you,” he breathed.
But she leapt from the bed, her good eye full of fire, snatched up the hammer and ran across the room to where the crown lay on the ground. She fell to her knees and began to pound it, both hands swinging the hammer as hard as she could.
With every strike, he felt Lila clawing at his mind. He was screaming before he realized it, but when he tried to stop, he bit his tongue, tasting blood.
Pain flashed across his vision, but he held on as he watched Marielle. She was glorious. Like a winter storm come alive, her hair untangled from her braid, flying as she battered the crown with her hammer, chunks of gemstone flying out and slicing her cheeks and hands with every stroke. It was nothing now but broken gems and battered metal and then a black liquid like ink spilled out and as Marielle scrambled back, it rose up into the air like smoke, forming the shape of a curvaceous, winking woman with a long red braid and then bursting in a shower of rubies.
Red gemstones flew in every direction, scoring his skin with painful trails and spattering across the bed and floor like a stone firework.
He felt Lila scream out of existence and then Ram seemed to grow, his fists battering Tamerlan’s walls. He couldn’t be stronger if he was the dragon under their feet, bucking as it awoke.
Marielle looked to him, gasping in huge breaths, her eyes shining in triumph.
She’d done it.
Her face broke into a smile – the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen and he smiled with her.
He could feel Ram breaching his walls. There was no time left to beg her to kill him. He settled for mouthing the words, “I love you.”
Ram stole his body, wresting it from his grip and sending him to his knees in a howl of agony as the Legend took him again.
25: Flight of Yan
Marielle
She’d done it! She’d destroyed the avatar!
Her eyes sought Tamerlan’s sharing this intense moment of victory with him. His smile was like the rays of the sun at noon, blinding her. There had to be hope for him. With a smile like that – a love like that. She was right not to kill him. She was right –
He howled like a soul in hell, falling to his knees as the dragon began to buck underneath them.
Stop, Yan! Please lie still! She tried to tell the dragon with her mind. She’d spoken to the others. Why did he feel so far away?
Was it you who woke me?
Tamerlan’s howl continued and she took a step toward him and then froze. Should she help him? Or should she stay back? What if Ram the Hunter had him already? Her heart froze in her chest. She couldn’t do what he asked. She just couldn’t. Not even with a Legend looking at her through his eyes.
It was me, she said to the dragon. Can you lie still while people flee your back?
Why?
Tamerlan stopped screaming, his head whipping up and the calculating look on his face not his at all. She held the hammer up, wishing she’d tied him to the bed like Lila had been trying to tie her.
She had to focus on Yan. Or people were going to die.
I need them to be free, she said in her mind. Just like I am trying to free all of your kind. If you can just wait a few hours –
All of my kind?
I think there’s only one left. Across the ocean.
And you will free her?
It’s what I’m planning.
Then we will go there now. I will take you.
No, please listen! I need you to wait! Just until the city on your back is clear of humans!
I will try to stay level and keep the humans on my back.
It doesn’t work that way! Please!
The ground beneath her feet shifted and she was flung back against the wall. Ram the Hunter in Tamerlan’s body growled at her.
Swallowing, she clung to the wall, pulling herself back to her feet. She needed a plan to keep him here. Maybe there was a way to lock him in the room. Carefully, she slid over the bed, keeping out of his reach as he growled at her.
“Stay, woman,” he snarled. “If you leave, you’ll always be looking for the knife in your back. You’ll live your whole life knowing I can destroy you at any moment.”
She ducked around him, barely avoiding his reach as she rushed through the door and slammed it behind her. There was a lock but no key. Frantically, she searched the room of cages, ripping their covers off their cages to an uproar of squawks and shrieks.
They were only birds. Gorgeous birds of every color and variation she could imagine – but only birds.
And no keys hung in their cages. But this time, when she left that room, she didn’t go to the study, she went into another room – one with a balcony and a large window open to the city below and fancy, stuffed chair for guests to sit and talk. From here, in one of the palace towers, she watched as the tip of a wing rose up from the mud, water rolling off of it in the moonlight.
She clenched her jaw as she thought furiously.
Please, Yan, don’t move. Please, wait for people to leave!
She heard a whisper in her ears coming in from the window. She ran to it and in the air, she heard Etienne’s voice slipping through the breeze. It was his warning. The warning that was meant to go out to the whole city from the time she’d opened that door into the study until now.
“Flee the city while you can! Flee before the dragon rises! Flee!”
As soon as it was done the sound of bells ringing filled the air as every bell in the city began to ring at once. She stumbled back from the window. The position of the moon was changing.
I am rising. See how I can bear a city on my back? I will deliver you all to my sister dragon Xytexyx and you will free her as you have promised.
Marielle made a frustrated sound in her throat. Couldn’t he wait just a few hours? She needed to secure Tamerla
n and make sure the rest of the populace had fled!
You will flee, too. No, I will bear you there immediately.
Over the ocean? She didn’t even know the way. She cursed mentally. Why did he have to be so difficult?
Why are you the one being so difficult? I can find others of my kind. You will wait patiently in this city.
Stupid dragon!
She spun at the sound of footsteps on the marble. Variena froze in the doorway, still in her robe, her eyes wide at the sight of Marielle.
“You!” Marielle snarled, feeling like all her frustration was focused on a single target.
The world tilted under her, but she kept her feet. This wasn’t the first time she’d flown in a city attached to the back of a dragon. As soon as the floor stopped moving, she drew her sword.
“Where is he?” Variena asked, drawing herself up to her full height.
“In your bedroom,” Marielle said, her mouth twisting as she spoke. “Do you have a key for the lock?”
A calculating look filled her mother’s eyes. “I see you bested the man, child. You take after your mother.”
“Do I?” It was all Marielle could do not to spit. Took after Variena? Was Variena kidding?
Crashes and shouts sounded in the background. Not everyone had made it out of the city – of course.
Marielle reined in her temper. Fury at her mother would have to wait. People were dying out there and they’d continue to die if they weren’t helped.
“Mother,” she said, keeping the venom out of her tone. “The dragon has risen, and he is planning to fly across the sea.”
“You can’t know that.” Variena crossed her arms, defensively.
“And many of your people were unable to flee.” It was all she could do not to glance to the window. “They need leadership. If they can find sheltered places – in the cellars or under bridges – anywhere that will protect them from falling buildings – then they need to get to them immediately.”
“I’ll do all of that once I have what the Legend promised me,” Variena said with a shrug.
Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series Page 94
