Yum, yum! the mist-monster squealed.
The doorway floated ever closer, breathing heat against his face. It felt like a knife was severing through his brain—
A yowl split his eardrums. The mist-monster released him.
Jaime gasped. The mortal world rebounded back into view. Water streamed from his eyes.
In the next two seconds, the most bizarre thing happened: the oversized cat reared onto its hind legs—and morphed into Arrys.
Jaime released a scream.
Arrys gripped his sword, slashed a vehement arc over Jaime’s head. The mist-monster shrieked.
Shattering into white shards of light.
“Run!” Arrys roared.
Mud gushed into the bed of his nails as he picked himself up. The mist-monsters’ numbers were growing on both banks. He resorted to his last option—
Jaime ducked into the deep end of the river.
The world under its surface was eerily silent. His heart drummed against his head as he dived further upstream. The rocky waterbed opened into a tunnel. Please, please, lead to an opening. His only other option was to resurface.
The seconds ticked away. His lungs bucked, screamed for air. Just as they were about to burst, glowing light shimmered over the surface.
His head shattered through water. He choked and wheezed for air.
Crystal rocks grew all over the walls, throbbing with a faint blue light. His avai sensed a well of spirit energy. A cave. Didn’t Achuros once mention otherworldly reservoirs, scattered across the Four Kingdoms, leached The Empyrean’s energies into the mortal world?
Jaime dragged himself onto shore. A monstrous headache wiped out his strength. If the mist-monsters tracked him here, he wouldn’t be able to fight them.
Jaime listened, waited.
Seconds trickled away into minutes.
A minute turned into an hour.
No one came for him.
He breathed hard, counting to four. Stay awake. Stay awake. But the poisonous energy that invaded his mind sapped at him. Jaime closed his eyes.
His head fell limp.
Splashing echoed in the cave. Jaime’s lungs heaved in dry fear. No matter how much he grappled for Air, it eluded him.
“Prince?”
Jaime stumbled onto his feet.
Arrys stepped out of the pool, his umber hair clinging to his neck. Jaime’s knapsack hung over his left shoulder.
“You—you’re—you’re a leopard—”
The Larfene held up his hands in peace. Jaime trembled, his back pressed against the cave wall.
“Don’t! Stay away from me—”
Arrys unslung the knapsack, offered it to Jaime.
“You were not meant to see that,” he mumbled.
“What? That you can turn into animals?” Jaime’s eyes bulged as he understood. “You—you were that cat that followed me through the forests! And that hawk that rescued me from the High Temple! Gods, is that how you got through the King’s blockade? By turning yourself into a whale?”
“I flew,” Arrys wearily corrected.
“Lord Jaypes! You’ve been watching me since the day I escaped Mount Alairus!” Jaime grabbed onto his cloak. “No more secrets! You’ve got to tell me who you are!”
“Nòs kivhan.” Arrys arched brows lowered even more. “No questions. But for our friendship, I will admit: I have been hunting the things you saw since—” He paused. “Since the death of my baba and mamah. For many years, I saw none in Larfour. But these dark energies are growing stronger in The West, and then I felt the stormwave in Jaypes. I knew a Relic awakened a new Sage. I have been following you ever since to see that the Darklings do you no harm.”
Jaime rubbed the scar wound above his eye.
Darklings? Dark energies?
“You felt the stormwave,” Jaime said. “How is that possible unless you’re a Sage or airpriest?”
“There are many powerful beings in the Four Kingdoms. Inside my Kingdom, some know how to shape-shift into beasts. They are shaimans. I was born with this gift.”
Jaime slumped against the wall. “Other powerful beings—what other beings? Why hasn’t anyone in Jaypes—or the other Kingdoms—seen those mist-monsters before?”
“Before our gods formed the Four Kingdoms, the Continents crawled with dark things—”
“Is this part of Book Five and Six? Your version of the Legend on the mountain didn’t mention any dark things.”
Arrys thumbed his pommel. “They are a varied race. For example, the things you saw outside—banshi. I trust you understand what they do.”
“What . . . ” Jaime’s voice cracked into a whisper. “What happens if they drag you through their doorway?”
“This, nòs kivhan.” No questions. “You do not want to know. I have seen men devoured in terrible ways.”
He swallowed.
“And many, many more cursed beings. The Dark race is as old as the Sages, but fortunately, less powerful. In the days of yore, the High Kings of Larfour hunted them to extinction. Book Four.”
Jaime closed his eyes. “I wish I couldn’t see them.”
All the times one had appeared behind him, he was afraid to turn around and look, but he would feel it, his hackles standing straight up, raw fear surging into all corners of his body, neck paralyzed, his chest about to burst, as he prayed, prayed, prayed it would go away.
“I understand,” Arrys murmured.
“Who are they? What do they want?”
“As the Sages uphold the Unity, they try to destroy it. They lurk in the shadows, plotting, scheming, whispering.” His grip tightened on his hilt. “Hungering for Sage blood. It is Sages who protect elemental peace. It was Sages who nearly obliterated the Darklings, and now they are back to do the same to your kind.”
Cold crept up Jaime’s spine.
“All think they are dead. No one in my Kingdom will believe me, but now . . . ” Arrys peered at the pool where they resurfaced from. “I have seen them here, and so have you.”
“What do they want?”
“Wipe out the Sages, and so bring back The Empyrean’s supernatural disasters on our world.”
“But why?”
“This is a dark plan I cannot figure out. And perhaps, no why; simply because they are mischief. They trespass into the mortal world with growing numbers. Night is becoming darker in the Four Kingdoms. The other Kings do not see or feel. Not even the High King. But I am here to hunt, and bring a Darkling before the High Throne. Then, the Four Kingdoms will believe and unite as our ancestors in the Legend. We will destroy them for good.”
Holy skies.
“How many of them exist?”
“A few hundred perhaps,” Arrys said. “No more.”
“That’s why they’re following me. They know I’m a Sage.”
“Elaa. Yes. I am a Darkslayer. Like my ancestors, I hunt Dark blood under the cover of night. My avai felt Darklings in your Kingdom, but I did not expect to find so many.”
Does Usheon know about the Darklings?
With trembling hands, Jaime reached for Achuros’s ledger. Perhaps the old airpriest had written something about them. The cursed symbol—it had to be the Emblem of the Darklings. But the rumbling Voice—who did that terrifying Voice belong to?
He cried in dismay when he opened its pages. Its precious ink was bleeding into the water stains.
The second Arrys saw the foreign symbols, he snapped upright.
“May I see?”
He gingerly handed it over. The Larfene’s gaze darkened as they skimmed over the vanishing words.
“Hava Lashquélaan,” Arrys breathed. “Who does this book belong to?”
“My mentor, Achuros. He was an airpriest.” Jaime forced in a breath. “Why, what’s it say?”
“Let me study
. I will keep this.”
“But—”
“This mentor of yours.” Scarred, rough hands pressed the pages shut. “Where is he?”
Jaime swallowed. “Dead.”
Arrys nodded and tucked the ledger deep under his cloak. “Lucky, as you Westerners say. Lucky for you, and me.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
It was Jaime who finally shook Arrys to leave the cave. As terrified as he was of the banshi, he had to find his mother. He had to know the truth.
Both of them climbed the scrubby slope that opened to the biggest of Townfold’s network of villages.
Scattered fires were the only light on the mountain. Behind the collapsing palisade, squalid people wandered between the charred remains of their houses. Thatch, spilled oil, and broken pottery lacerated his feet. The Prytaneoin was gone. Ptolemy’s Library gone—all the historical buildings of their once great town, levelled.
All that remained of Champion’s Square was the pyre.
Jaime stared up at the stake from the very same spot he stood a year ago. A heap of charred kingpine and debris loomed over him.
Please, don’t let them—don’t—
His brother’s screams. Like Hilaris Pappas, it was as if Townfold Village—and the rest of the mountain—never existed.
Vultures circled above him. One of them screeched, waking him.
His feet shuffled toward the ragged slope of the akropolis. It was like time didn’t exist, he was separated from his body, observing former Jaime Pappas from a distance. None of this was real. It couldn’t be.
Jaime reached the pinnacle of Townfold, standing where Lord Gaiyus’s villa used to be. The blood rushed out of his head.
Bodies, spears, and shields littered the ground as far as the eye could see. Somewhere out there, the vultures picked at Julias Markus, Commander of the Free Guard.
Everyone he knew, gone.
As Jaime turned, his sandal caught something on the ground. Rimus Vulas, the town bully—his eyes were wide open. Maggots writhed and squealed inside a tangle of intestines spilling out of his stomach.
Jaime crashed onto his knees and vomited. Arrys was back at his side, holding him.
So this is what war really means.
Suddenly, he understood why Sojin had hated him. Why Toran had snapped at the Temple—even why Eridene wanted to smuggle him to Glaidde against his will.
“I have to get home,” he said.
Arrys didn’t seem to understand. Jaime’s mouth couldn’t form words. His lungs shrunk back to the size they were before Hilaris’s burning.
Not enough air.
He needed his breather.
The cry of vultures grew louder as he trudged out of the main gate. The barrows loomed high overhead. He could almost see ghost projections of him and Hilaris skipping past tall broom and wild daises to get to Hektor Pappas’s grave.
The barn was empty. Sokrates, their mule, gone.
Water drenched his eyes, falling over his clamped teeth. His sandals scraped against the beaten earth portico of their country house. The familiar tapestry of ivy crept over the south wall.
Empty.
Of course it was.
The sobs stayed lodged in his throat. As Arrys held him in their central courtyard, the banestorm’s tempests passing overhead, a familiar scent trickled into his nose.
Stonemist incense.
Oh, what a sweet aroma! An outcropping of memories surfaced from his childhood. And as the scent grew stronger, Jaime lifted his head.
A blurry shape formed in front of him in the doorway of their kitchen.
“Jaime?”
Arrys let go of him. In the span of a breath, Jaime was pressed in her arms. His head now towered over her shoulder. The smell of stonemist incense washed over him, and his lungs inflated with air again.
“Mamá,” he whispered.
His foster mother buried him in kisses. “My Prince. My sweet Prince, you’re alive . . . ”
“What happened after I ran?”
“They took all of the children. Commander Julias lead a small resistance south of here, but they were defeated. The royal lochos killed everyone else. Someone betrayed the Alliance’s plans to the King.”
Nides did, he thought bitterly. But I let Nides go.
“We had hoped that you . . . ?”
A dying glint of hope lit her eyes. By habit, Jaime reached into his pocket for his breather, even though he knew it wasn’t there.
“I can’t fulfill the prophecy.”
Hida did not answer. The tears in her eyes swelled.
“I’m sorry,” he tried to say.
In the howling darkness of the banestorm, they wept.
The last light of the day died. Shouts rattled the alpines from the west.
Hida looked up from the dough in her clay bowl, honey cakes only half-formed. Her eyes darted to the mantle, where she kept the incense holder. But when she hesitated, Jaime stood up and lit it for her.
“I’ll go see what’s happening,” he said.
But she held onto his wrist, shaking. “Jaime, it’s not safe.”
“I’ll be careful.”
She wouldn’t let go, not until he kissed her cheek.
Hida Pappas forced a smile. “Don’t stay out long. The cakes will be ready when you get back.”
Jaime stepped outside—and immediately pressed a hand to his nose.
Despite the distance of his farmstead from the battlefield, the vicious winds slapped the stench of corpses against his face. He swallowed a gag and jogged in the direction of the shouting.
A handful of the Free Guard stood at the edge of the dead sea. Trying to engage the Alairans, trying to find anyone who would listen. The soot-faced villagers blankly scavenged or turned their faces away.
“Hey!” Jaime sprinted down the sloped fields, now absent of wildflowers. “What’s going on?”
The closest guards stumbled backwards. Jaime recognized the one at the head— Damias Demoulios. The last Free Guard he had spoken to before he escaped Mount Alairus. It looked like he hadn’t shaved for a year.
“Jaime Pappas?” he exclaimed. “I mean, Your Highness—Holy Lord! The rumors were true!” He floundered into a bow. “Royal scouts—one of them alerted the nearest garrison of your presence. We didn’t believe it at first, but we saw them. Two lochoi are approaching.”
“How far?”
“They will arrive by dawn, Jaim—I mean, Your Highness. At least a thousand, to finish off the rest of us.”
These people are farmers, shepherds, cheesemongers. But I get it, Father. You’ll make them suffer, again and again, and make me watch. It will never be enough for you.
“Who’s in charge here?” Jaime demanded.
“L-Lord Gaiyus Sartorios, Prince!”
“He’s alive?”
Damias hurled his beard up and down.
“Take me to him!”
The young guard waved to the others. They raced through the field of dead. Jaime limped, struggling to keep pace.
Florin said the Air Alliance was scattered without central leadership, but his brother’s ward had survived all along. Gaiyus Sartorios alone could unite the Jaypan high lords. Gaiyus would know what to do. The prophecy was three weeks away. There was time yet.
It’s not over, Your Holiness.
Damias pointed to a lonely pavilion up at the barrows. “Over there, Prince!”
Jaime thanked him, breathless, and climbed up the shelf of basalt. The slope was slight, but he was panting hard by the time he shoved through the flaps.
“My lord!”
The lone shape turned. A coarse wool himation curled his shoulders in. Liver spots stained his hands and pate, more than Jaime ever remembered. His right hand squeezed the neck of a wine goblet.
He look
s like a shriveled fig.
Even so, Lord Gaiyus spoke in his familiar gentle lilt.
“Hmm, Jaime? I did not realize you were back on our mountain. Or what is left of it . . . ”
His wolf-gray eyes were still penetratingly sharp.
“One month ago, Julias Markus led the last of our forces in a desperate battle against Strategos Reizo’s lochoi. But alas, we failed. No one answered our call; no one could protect us against the King’s wrath.” His former liege lord began to circle him. “You had been our last hope. And your brother’s. He cried your name the night he burned, do you remember?”
Lord Gaiyus stopped at a wooden table and reached for something behind his back.
Slowly, Jaime said, “You already knew the soldiers were coming. You sent for them.”
“What do you mean, child?”
He closed his eyes. Trying to quell the rising storm in his chest. This man. Hilaris’s second father. His brother had loved Gaiyus as much as Jaime loved his mother.
“How long?”
“I do not understand—”
Not Nides, it was never Nides.
Jaime lashed out one arm. The goblet sailed out of Gaiyus’s hand. Blood-red splattered the linen walls.
“How long have you been in contact with the King?” he shouted. “Did you betray Arcurea, too? Did you tell him Hilaris forged his age?”
The old man’s papery lips thinned in a smile. “What does it matter, anyway? The Lords of the Air Alliance are in chains. And that fool statesman Florinokles—dead. His head is spiked over Aeropolis’s gates.”
Jaime tremored.
“I sold their identities to the King. His Holiness knew of our plans to capture Mount Mynati long before you ever learned Air.” Lord Gaiyus chuckled. “It is over. Let what hope you have die. By the end of this month, that banestorm outside will obliterate the Jaypan race.”
Gaiyus abruptly uncoiled, lashing out his arm. The object behind him glinting—a knife.
Jaime ducked.
The Senator staggered forward in surprise. Jaime slid aside. Gaiyus crashed into his table. Fruit bowl, wheat bread, alabaster vessel of perfume all went flying. Jaime wrenched the knife away from him. Holding it up high. The old man raised both hands in fear.
Stormfire Page 25
