Read Bloodletting Part 1: The Affinities Cycle Book 1 Online
Authors: Mark Ryan
Bloodletting Part 1: The Affinities Cycle Book 1 (7 page)
Chapter 14
Tetra Bicks
The room wavered in and out of sight. Tetra jerked his head from side to side, trying to focus. Had someone been there with him earlier, holding him down? Had a minute passed? Hours? Days? Sweat drenched him as he fought against his own body and the pain wracking it. It was difficult to think, difficult to pin down what was reality, what was nightmare.
As the world shifted around him and twisted his body with torment, his affinity responded in kind. It reached out like a third arm, groping for anything to hold onto, brushing over wood and stone and cloth nearby. Their composition opened to him, lightening and then increasing in density as his magic touched them.
A bed. He lay on a bed. Iron rivets bolted the legs together. Even as he sensed this, his affinity touched one and reduced its density by half. Metal squealed as the rivet snapped. The bed shifted beneath him, threatening to fling him to the floor. Tetra fought his affinity, pulling back as best he could. His grandfather’s last lecture floated through his mind, warning of the dangers of losing control, letting their affinities run wild.
Control it. He must control his power, or it could hurt those around him. Fighting his affinity wrenched at his injured back, spasming muscles clamped his spine. Shockwaves of searing agony tore through his body. He already lay in enough pain it didn’t matter whether he added a bit more to it.
He turned his affinity on himself, trying to anchor it within his muscles, bones, and organs. Letting it flow through him, increasing the density of his limbs at random, he manipulated his flesh to ease the pain.
His legs still refused to work, no matter how light or heavy he made them. Tears dripped down his cheek. Gritting his teeth, he turned his head to the side, refusing to acknowledge them. He felt hollow. The dark room still shifted under his gaze, he couldn’t tell where he was. Why had this happened? He gripped the soft linen bed sheets, squeezing his hands into fists. The room was so hot.…
Cutting through his disorientation, a presence at the back of his mind quivered and flared for a moment. Halli. His twin lived.
Save her.…
He didn’t know how he sensed her across such a distance, but he refused to believe it was just his imagination. If he felt her, perhaps she could sense him, too. Perhaps she could even touch him with her affinity despite their separation. She’d healed him before, soothed the pain and eased the mangled mess of his back. Could their sibling bond bridge such a gap?
He reached out to her through the link, grasping for her Geist talent. He knew it shouldn’t work this way. They were too far, and she needed to be consciously trying to heal him for her affinity to work. She couldn’t know his condition, couldn’t know how to respond. Yet he still tried.
He envisioned her standing behind him, hands on his back, providing constant, unwavering support as she always had. The cooling feeling of her healing washed over him, easing his agony. Just as their grandfather had tried to teach them, he set aside his natural resistance and opened himself to her affinity.
When the first chilly wave of power rippled through him, it shocked Tetra so much he almost lost the connection. The presence in his mind wavered and dimmed, but he locked onto it and held firm. He held on for dear life. Not only was it easing his pain, but it was a connection to Halli that let him know she was alive.
The twisted mass of pain in his back relaxed. His sister’s Geist affinity blunted the razor edge of torment and let his mind clear for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Fatigue also rushed in, taking the opportunity to force true rest on him. He let it take him, knowing he didn’t surrender, but gave himself the chance to recover his wits and wake stronger than ever. It was a chance to fight once more.
Save her …
***
Chapter 15
Halli Bicks
Panic flooded Halli’s awareness as she struggled within the dream. It had to be a dream. Powerful Geists rampaged through Jaegen, manipulating—no, attacking—the spirits of the villagers. Some were strong enough to sever the binding of soul to body. Each time a Geist employed the taboo technique, a soul wailed in agonized fury as it departed the living plane.
Echoes screamed through the night, bypassing her ears and ripping through her mind. At the core of her affinity was spirit. The magic of healing. Her soul wailed in despair, shrieking at her to save them, ease their pain.
Tetra’s voice broke through the other tortured cries.
Halli!
Her eyes shot open and nausea twisted her stomach. She sat up, regaining enough awareness of her surroundings to turn and vomit outside of the cage. When there was nothing left to expel, she pulled back her matted, mud-caked hair and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. Human waste reeked, souring the air around the cage.
She leaned against the side of the cage to catch her breath, keeping her eyes squeezed shut. The other girls would be waiting for her to talk to them, reassure them, but she wasn’t ready yet. She trailed her hand against the cage, relying on her tactile senses to distract her from the nausea.
Rather than metal or stone, vines and small trees had been woven together to form a living prison. Earthen pillars wove through the cage’s bars, strengthening the whole structure. She opened her eyes. Most of the other girls stared at her, expressions a mixture of worry and terror. Katerine lay nearby, unconscious. Laney crawled over to Halli from where she’d been sitting beside the prone girl.
Scores of children had been taken from Jaegen, though only a couple dozen were in Halli’s cage. There had to be other cages scattered throughout the clearing, and children’s crying echoed through the mighty trees. Halli fought the tears welling up in her own eyes. Many of her friends hadn’t made it. Already injured from the attack on the village, dozens had died on the trek to the oroc’s home. Halli herself had been overwhelmed during the attack and the journey. Dreamlike wisps of memory flooded her, brief visions around the pain she felt from all the death. Her affinity for Geist magic had completely overwhelmed her.
“Are you alright?” Laney asked. Soot blackened her face, making her bright eyes all the more stark a contrast. Halli could tell that she was fighting back tears, but she appeared physically unharmed.
“I think so,” Halli said, despite her throbbing head and lingering nausea. “What happened? I … I remember an attack. So much death. Then we were walking?”
“Orocs,” Laney whispered. “They attacked Jaegen.” Several of the other girls whimpered. “They killed … everyone else.” Her voice trembled. “I think we’re the only ones left.”
“Orocs?” Halli scrunched up her brow, gazing at their forested surroundings, dumbfounded. She had thought the orocs in her memory were just part of the delusions. Laney caught her attention again. Fear radiated off the younger girl. Reaching out, she wrapped her arms around Laney, pulling her into a tight embrace. The younger girl gratefully accepted the hug, sniffling quietly onto Halli’s shoulder.
Halli gazed at the other girls in the cage. Why would peaceful healers like the orocs attack Jaegen? It had been generations since any conflict occurred between the humans of Promencia and the forest race. Why would have to wait, though. Her friends needed her to be together, to be strong right now. Patting Laney on the back, she released her friend. Laney sat back, wiping at her eyes with the sleeves of her dirty nightdress.
Laney reached back to a stone bowl fused into the ground. It was about five feet wide, occupying the center of the cage, and was filled with water. She retrieved a stone cup filled to the brim, which she presented to Halli. “Here. Drink.” Her hands trembled.
Halli’s hands shook as well as she took the cup. Her entire body was weary and exhausted. “What happened to Kat?”
Tears welled in Laney’s eyes. “I don’t know. She—I tried to help her.…” She looked at their friend. “I’m not a Geist.” She put her face in her hands and cried softly, the sobs shaking her thin frame. Halli reached out one hand, gently stroking her friend’s hair.
Holding the stone cup in her other hand, she drank the cool water, soothing her parched throat, and waited for Laney to compose herself. She felt disconnected from their circumstances, unable to summon the grief Laney demonstrated. Oddly, this realization scared her even more than their situation. She didn’t understand the extent of what happened in the village. Everyone killed? Massacred? If so, her parents were among the victims. And what of—
“Tetra?” she blurted. “Where are the boys?”
Laney wiped the tears from her cheeks, but more replaced them and she broke down again. Halli put down the stone cup and gently pulled her friend into another embrace. Laney sobbed against her chest. “Shhhh … it’s okay.” Halli whispered softly as she stroked her friend’s hair.
“They’re in another cage,” one of the other girls said. “There’s a whole ton of caves under the tree roots, each with cages.”
“Tetra … he.…” Laney’s sobs almost made her incoherent. “He wasn’t with them. I never saw him leave your house … he … it.…”
“What?” Halli sat frozen inside, unable to move lest she crack and shatter. Her arms tightened, holding Laney against chest. Despite the frigid dread a faint flicker of warmth lit in a corner of her mind. She remembered searching for Tetra in her dreams, feeling his distant presence. He lived. She knew this. And yet … there was something distant about his life force. Not just in proximity, either. Something about her brother was further, as though he wasn’t just far away, but was … words failed her thoughts.
“What happened?” she pressed the girls.
Laney flinched. “Your house … it burned to the ground. It collapsed as they took us away. He never came out.”
***
Chapter 16
Sven Malschev
Sven tested the organic bars of their cage for what felt like the fortieth time, walking the circuit of the cage. Forty paces around the small area, stepping carefully over the knobs and divots in the ground. He had tried sleeping, but the ground was too uneven. Nothing like the soft bed of his home. The murmur of the oroc camp was a stark contrast. He was used to the comforting sounds of his parents in the other room, opposite their small Heart room. What sleep he got was fitful, sundered by nightmares.
He paced to keep the memories at bay. If he thought too long about them, he would cry—just like the younger children. He looked down at one as he stepped carefully over them. They had wailed past the point of exhaustion. Their pitiful sobs had enraged the guard oroc until he had bashed his club against the sides of their cage, leering at them with its face full of sharp white teeth. Before tonight, he had never seen an oroc, never particularly feared them. Everyone knew the orocs were a peaceful race that lived deep in the forested green of the Rocmire. The king had a treaty with them, didn’t’ he? What had caused all of this? Nothing made sense.
The oroc guard followed his movements with his dark green eyes. His eyes didn’t have whites like humans did, only dark green orbs with gold and black speckled irises. Was it a male? Sven wasn’t sure. They all looked the same to him; they all frightened him. Nevertheless, he studied them, trying to figure out why they had taken him and the other children.
All he remembered from that night dissolved into a nightmare of flames, smoke, and screams—interspersed with the cries of battle. The orocs’ strange, ululating cries of battle haunted his dreams. Memories cloaked as nightmare made him start from muddled nightmares where he wasn’t sure what was real.
He had woken to that sound, crawling from his bed to find his house engulfed in smoke. His mother’s scream drew him running into the Heart room, where his father drunkenly fended off a pair of orocs with a chair leg.
The floor had split, and a stone spike had impaled his father, who had given off a final, gurgling cry of defiance as he tried to rush forward at them. His mother tried to use her magic, but she was too weak. What she intended as a gale wind to push the attackers out was only a light breeze. She had always been too weak, even to stop the drunken beatings Sven’s father gave him regularly. But she had always tried. Sven fought back a tear at the thought.
The orocs had said something in their weird language, and another spike had shot up to take his mother as well.
Sven’s own scream of terror had brought the orocs’ attention to him and they had turned, faster than he would have thought possible. One of them had snatched him by the arm, then caught him up in a rough embrace and flung him over his shoulder. He had wailed and beat at the creature, desperate to get to his parents, desperate to try to save them. The reality of their deaths had not yet sunk in.
The rest of the night was a blur of smoke and the pounding stride of the oroc as it bore him away from Jaegen. There were others there in the forest as well. He had heard their screams as the creatures bearing the other children rushed through the forest around them. He had desperately tried to hear for the others of his group, listening hard for Pavil, Malec, even Tetra, although he doubted he would hear him cry out.
Instead he heard the cries of the younger ones. When he tried to cry out, to reassure them that they were not alone, the oroc carrying him had gripped him tighter until he stopped, gasping for breath.
They had brought them to this place, this grotto amongst the trees, depositing them roughly on the ground as others wove the cage around them. Each cage was in the root system of a tree. Some of the orocs would work the earth, using Tecton magic that Sven could feel. Other would touch the trees, singing softly. He could only assume that they were using their Geist affinity in a way he had never seen. The last few guarded the children.
Holding their clubs menacingly, they gave Sven no doubt that they would use them if he tried to escape. Instead, he looked to the others, seeing Pavil knocked out, Malec staring angrily at the guards, the cluster of younger children crying, soot-stained and miserable. He didn’t see any of the girls anywhere. Perhaps the orocs had only taken the boys. The thought of Halli and Laney, Katerine and Leesa, and others from there group being dead was too much to bear.
“Why are you doing this?” He paused in front of the cage where the guard stood. “We have done nothing to you. We’re just children.”
The oroc laughed, a high-pitched whistling sound that was unmistakable even with their different species. It said something in its inscrutable language, then turned away, ignoring his further pleas. He thought it understood him, thought it knew what he meant when he asked for answers. Either that or it was just cruel.
He resumed pacing.
***