Crest (Ondine Quartet Book 3) (54 page)

Insides shook with fury. I was so tired of bad things happening to good people.

Sian should be alive. As should Marcella, Matt, and Ryder. Robby, too.

My face remained inches from hers. I wanted her to see the truth.

"I saw her, Yahaira. They tore her head off. Her blood stains the gravel bed —"

"Stop."

"She didn't go to the ball. She asked me to lie for her and went for a night swim instead. She saw them coming and tried to warn us. Her body was still in the water, pelt covering her legs —"

 
"No."

"Yes," I continued brutally. "You did that to her, to your
Sianne
."

"You're lying!" Grief and insanity crackled in the depths of her eyes. "She's coming here, she'll be here soon."

I pulled out a blood-stained white diamond
pedaillon
.

A
pedaillon
that could never be removed from a selkie unless the head was separated from the body.

She howled, a sound of wild anguish ripping through the air. Sobs tore from her throat, sharp keening like a wounded animal.

She dropped and curled into a fetal position, shudders racking her body.

"No...no....no..."

For a long moment, I just watched what was left of her.

I crouched beside her. "Where is the spear?"

Yahaira moaned, a trembling, broken heap rocking back and forth on the floor.

Julian turned aside. Ian looked like he was going to be sick.

Even if I found the spear, I didn't know what I was supposed to do with it.

Break it? Run away with it? Hide it from the Aquidae?

"You have to stop it," said a small voice.

Helene huddled in the corner, body pulled tight as if she were trying to crawl inside herself. Wide, frightened eyes stared at Yahaira's rocking body. No impersonal camera lens separated her from the truth of this moment.

I wished I could comfort her. But this was real and the only thing I could do was slap her with it.

"Helene." My voice was sharp. "Tell me how to stop it."

She blinked then scrambled to the table and grabbed the book.

"Hurry."

Thin fingers whipped through sections until she abruptly stopped. Grey eyes flickered over the page.

"The spear is only deadly to the loved one," she read aloud. "A creature who could go through sea, land..." She paused. "And sky."

"What?"

No elemental could fly. Did the acrobatics selkies did in the air count?

"That's what it says," she insisted. "The boy loved a creature, one who could easily travel through sea, land, and sky. A being who embodied both all and nothing."

Ray's haunted eyes.
With one, all are gone.

I am of air, earth, water, and fire. I am Essence.

"The Armicant."

It'd grown weaker because the spear had entered the kingdom.

Sian said it was bound to the best of us.

The Armicant dying meant every elemental brand dying, severing the connection to Essence magic.

It meant the failure of every
kouperet
. It meant the deaths of those who physically carried it within their bodies.

If the Armicant perished, every selkie bound to it through the elemental brand had no chance of survival.

Every gardinel fighting on land and sea would die in an instant.

Panic roared to life as Yahaira's plan became horribly clear.

Dax, who wasn't inducted yet, wouldn't die. He'd ascend the throne after the deaths of his brother and father with Sian as his Queen.

And the Shadow would've eliminated the gardinels and our sole weapon against him.

Helene scanned the next page. "The magic governing the spear is bound to the creator's blood. It says the binding can only be removed 'blood to blood'."

Ian frowned and studied the text. "There's not enough information here to explain what that means."

"Maybe you just have to break it," Julian said.

"No, then it would've said something along those lines."

I tuned out their conversation. Something niggled at the back of my brain, like faint dreams I couldn't recall.

The answer had to lie with the Armicant. It must've known what was coming.

Can't you feel it? It's here.

I know you, Kendra Irisavie. I know who you come from.

I knew his family.

Understanding vibrated deep in my bones.

I closed my eyes. "It means I have to do it."

"What?" Ian stood, his face alarmed.

"Kendra!"

I was already running.

Dagger blazed and I tore through the corridors of the palace. The roars and clangs of battle ricocheted off palace walls. Blood, sweat, and magic flooded the corridors.

All of it stemmed from the west wing.

Empath sensed it now, the touch of my father, the pull of his blood calling to me.

I finally understood what I needed to find.

Yahaira was every person who carelessly crushed innocence beneath their boots as if it were petty and disposable. Those who squeezed fragile beauty and laughed as it flailed and cried.

But there were also people who fought to preserve it, people who understood the irreplaceable kernel that was the best of us would always have more power than the worst.

Someone who waited while you found your way back to yourself. Who loved so deeply and honestly, he would sacrifice over and over again.

Someone who had the strength to walk away when I no longer did.

I would protect him.

THE GRAND HALL SWARMED WITH chaos. Red and black blood stained stone walls. A crush of bodies shifted and moved across the floor, navigating across corpses and broken furniture.

Over the terrace, a tiny figure was visible on the edge of the jutting promontory. A semi-circular band of chevaliers and gardinels protected Marquisa LeVeq, including a familiar head of silver hair.

Translucent bands of magic stretched from her raised hands, the energy holding back an undulating, straining wall of water at least four stories tall.

Suffocating air slammed against me. Within the palace, it cringed from the masses of Aquidae. On the other side, the Marquisa's powerful Virtue pounded against it.

Time slowed.

Sweat dripped down my face. The stench of bodies and blood burned my nostrils.

Tristan engaged with two Aquidae to the east. Ewan and Garreth fought back-to-back, dark yellow and amethyst
pedaillons
glinting in the moonlight.

Against the northern wall, Armicant lay on the floor, its eyes closed, body weakened past the point of movement.

And everywhere I turned, there were Aquidae.

Blood seeped from cuts on Tristan's arms and face. Ewan balanced his weight on his left leg because his right calf was shredded open.

The Armicant was weakening and the gardinels closest to it were already feeling its effects.

An Aquidae darted across the floor, heading straight for the unconscious beast. Tucked under its arm was a long, black bag I recognized as Helene's tripod case.

It unzipped the top and pulled out an old, primitive spear, with an iron tip and a base fashioned from dark wood. Magic pulsed, singing to me in a familiar voice.

Blood to blood.

Everything snapped back into real time.

Legs and arms pumped in harmony with my racing heart. Feet slid across the blood soaked floor.

I darted left, right, left.

Leaped over two corpses. Dagger cut through the throat of another.

I slid and grabbed a wooden rod broken off a tall lamp. Ends swiveled, pushing aside two staggering Aquidae.

Planting one end into the ground, I vaulted over three demons.

Spear tip winked.

I hit the ground, dagger in motion.

Landing was too short and I missed my target by an inch.

That was all it took.

Aquidae whipped around.

Blade hammered its heart just as its arm swung.

Spear tip sliced my skin.

I jerked back but not quickly enough.

Demon toppled forward, momentum driving the spear deep between my ribs.

Excruciating pain ripped through my body and I cried out.

Oh, God. It hurt so much.

Armicant's eyes snapped open.

Gritting my teeth, I yanked the spear out of my side. Crimson coated its tip and an ancient power screamed satisfaction. It reverberated in my hands, shifting and retreating slightly as it absorbed my blood's magic.

Renewed energy raced around the room. Garreth leaped off the ground and grabbed a lunging Aquidae. With a sharp crack, he broke its neck then pierced the Origin.

I staggered, spear gripped tight in my hand. Aquidae got off the ground, its wound knitting closed and demonic fury in its eyes.

A monstrous claw reached out and ripped its head off in one powerful swipe.

"Leave!" I shouted. "I'll remove the binding!"

With a wild cry, the Armicant heaved its body off the ground and exploded into the sky.

Everything hurt so much. The spear had pierced deep and hit something inside.

I dragged myself to the terrace and huddled against the northwest corner of the railing. Jutting out beyond the cliff face, it provided the most security. No Aquidae could climb up behind me and I had two hundred seventy degrees visibility.

With their strength renewed, the best of the gardinels fought ferociously and the Aquidae were dying.

Blood dripped down my leg. I gulped air, crying out as each breath sent a jolt of hurt smashing through me.

I glanced down. The wall of water strained against Marquisa LeVeq's magic.

The last few delegates were climbing into a square hatch along the ocean floor. A circle of gardinels and chevaliers formed a thick perimeter around them.

Pain clawed my side.

Hold on. Just a bit more.

Three charged from my right. Dagger slashed, but I was a second too slow.

They pounced. One of them jammed a hand into my gash.

I screamed.

Ewan tore through, yanked it off me, and precisely staked it before moving on to the other two.

But there were so many of them.

He fought, pulling them to the eastern section of the terrace. Another four attacked him at once, demonic screeches filling the air as they lunged.

"Ewan!"

Pain bowed my body. The world tilted. Straining, I limped forward a step then slumped against the railing.

A hand tore open his arm. Crimson blood sprayed into the air.

Still, he fought.

Get up, get up, Kendra.

Another gouged his chest.

"No!"

I yanked my body up. Legs trembled under me, not wanting to hold my weight.

I fell to my knees.

His body shuddered. Blood spattered across the white stones of the terrace.

"Ewan!"

They tore off his arm.

He kept fighting.

Until he finally sank under the assault, body disappearing under the pack.

Body shook uncontrollably.

They ripped him apart and there wasn't a single fucking thing I could do about it.

Ewan
.

I rested against the railing, body hunched, and struggled to pull myself upright.

Magic roared behind me, the ocean pushing and resisting its demands.

With one last bellow, it snapped.

Marquisa LeVeq's Virtue disconnected. Energy thundered and unleashed waters crashed in a surge of power.

But the demons wouldn't stop coming.

A new wave of Aquidae scuttled up the side of the palace like a nest of rats crawling out of a sewer.

Voracious eyes fastened on my aura, on the spear in my hand.

There was no time.

A shape tore through the chaos. Tristan's dark eyes blazed, his expression fearsome as he cut his way toward me with brutal precision.

Fingers tightened, the binding of my ancestor rippling off the weapon and into my skin. The ocean beckoned behind me.

Our eyes met. I would not let him die.

I fell back.

Air whistled around me.

The cry of the ocean and Tristan's shout blended into one long roar as I plummeted into the churning water.

***

I'd lost track of time long ago.

Gentle waves pushed me toward land.

Go. Move.

I dragged myself up, pain lancing through me with each excruciating step. Slowly, I pulled myself up the rocky shore. Stones cut into my palms and legs, scraped against the wound on my side.

More. I needed to get as far away as possible.

Finally, even my mind knew what my body had long ago accepted.

I'd reached my limit.

I sagged to the ground. The world swam and every part of me hurt so much.

But I had to finish this.

I shut my eyes and concentrated on my Virtue. Its strong current was already slowing to a trickle.

There wasn't much time left.

Up close, the spear looked harmless. Battered and old with a simple wooden handle and dull tip.

I touched the gash and wiped my blood on the spear tip. Bright crimson stained the flat metal.

Virtue reached into the weapon through my blood. It reverberated, sensing a latticework over the tip.

An ancient magic, tightly bound. This was love that had become warped. Instead of the fluidity and acceptance of the ocean, it had hardened to an icy hate as dangerous as Yahaira's.

I unwound each of those magic threads, carefully pulling them off the tip. Empath caressed the metal until there was nothing left.

It was done.

All that remained was a magicless relic from a long forgotten past.

The last of my Virtue slipped away like water through my fingers and I collapsed on to my back.

Pain crested and faded. It wasn't much longer.

Silence approached.

Will the sondaleur give up the life of one to save all?

The Lieutenant had made a mistake.

There was one life I'd give up without hesitation to save all.

Warmth drained, replaced by a coldness freezing my bones from within.

Somewhere under that open and free sky, in a world of beauty and magic, passing between land and sea, he would live and bring the war to a close. I was certain of it.