King's Folly (Book 2) (31 page)

“Let the boy go, and let me heal her, Isek.”

“As soon as you do what you are told.”

“You’ll kill us anyway,” Morigan said. She was a healer, but she was also a Nuthaanian, and Isek did not want to provoke her instincts.

“No, I won’t, but I will put you in a comfortable dungeon, and allow you to heal the boy and Brinehilde.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because your talents are useful, Morigan. Do you understand?”

The weight of innocent lives settled on her shoulders. Victer climbed to his feet using the wall for support. One eye was already swollen shut.

“I’d ask for your word, but I can see it means nothing.”

“Such is life,” Isek shrugged.

“And death,” she added with unmistakable loathing. Morigan wiped her hands on her apron, tidied her bun, and smoothed her dress. “I’ll tell the children we’re headed to the castle then, for the boy. Is that satisfactory?”

Isek dipped his chin.

“Six men for two women and a boy,” she said, glancing at the carnage. “You chose the wrong side.”

Isek Beirnuckle leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “I am my own side, Morigan.”

❧

Twenty cowled Unspoken ringed the walkway. Isek Beirnuckle did not join the circle, but stood politely off to the side, silently weaving a crown over his smooth knuckles as he scanned those assembled, trying to put names to the concealed faces.

Nearly everyone of them had a quirk—the way he moved or stood or breathed—but the robes were heavy and black, obscuring most of the tells. Eventually most of those assembled would make a mistake, and Isek would spot it, putting a name to obscurity.

Sidonie was one such name. Isek had picked her out by the way she moved when she joined the circle, all elegance and grace—so innate to her highborn blood. Victer was easy to spot, his military training never left him, and Eiji was known to all—the spiky-haired gnome couldn’t be bothered with robes. As for the rest: they might as well have been Thira.

The circle chanted in a low drone. Not the Lore, but another tongue—a familiar, skin crawling grate that was distinctive to Bloodmagi. The guards opened the corrals and began dragging out silent prisoners for the slaughter. The first offering hit the slab, was sliced, gutted, bled and discarded with efficiency. Blood flowed down the slab, pooled, and spilled out of the gaping stone mouths.

Tharios stood in the center of the ritual circle, weaving a complicated series of runes that hung in the air and began to glow red when the blood pooled.

Isek raised a hairless brow. Tharios was mixing the Lore with Bloodmagic. Theoretically, the two drew from the same source, but he had never seen the two disciplines used in tandem. Tharios used the perverse on something pure. Isek was both impressed and appalled, and he studied the smooth-faced Wise One with new respect. The current Archlord possessed knowledge beyond his years.

When the last thrashing body stilled, it was tossed into the waiting cart. Blood ran through the sands, filling a maze of runes. The final drop fell from the spout, and the enchantment flared to life—a barrier that swirled with power.

Tharios withdrew the flask they had found in Marsais’ bedchamber, and set it in the center of the maze with ceremony. The ritual swept the flask up, plucking it from the ground, so that the vessel hovered at waist level. Without the slightest hesitation, Tharios raised his palm summoning the Runic Eye. The Archlord’s mark flared to life and the cork dissolved.

The air turned frigid. Frost crept from the opening, climbing down the metal onto the ritual circle, freezing the blood with a spiderweb of icy tendrils. Isek’s lungs burned, the air was hollow and stinging, and he fought for breath.

A thick mist rose from the flask, seeping into the chamber. It buried its chill touch into his skin like a cloak of needles. The chant died. Those gathered, began to choke and cough and stir in panic. But their boots were rooted in place, stuck to the layer of ice that had crystalized in the fog. Isek’s clothing cracked, and if he had possessed hair, it would have shattered.

A creaking exhale filled the room like a slab breaking from an iceberg. When the breath hit this realm, a Greater Elemental born from the Frozen Wastes of Isiikle surged into being. A thing of ice in its purest form blinded the onlookers and froze the air. A gasping voice fought to speak, summoning the Lore. A single word activated the circle. Copper runes clamped around the elemental, burning into its icy form with vice-like brands. A powerful ward pulsed on its monstrous shape. It fought and bellowed, and thrashed with a ferocity that shook the walls. The frozen blood of the sacrificed began to boil and churn, moving with sluggish purpose through the pattern below, but the crystal creature fought, moving like gossamer through the blood.

“Silence!” Tharios shouted, hoarsely.

The elemental stilled, but its breath creaked in the air, raining shards of ice into the room with every exhalation. It shifted in its prison, ancient, powerful, scratching at their sanity.

The thing was a cloud of ice, reshaping, solidifying, turning to gas, and back to its solid form without rhyme or reason and taking no discernible shape. The constant transformation hurt Isek’s head—and his eyes. The elemental’s clear light was painfully brilliant.

Tharios inhaled, and shifted with a rasp. Ice fell off his encrusted robes. The gathered Unspoken followed, flexing their limbs, bending fingers, sucking in draughts of air. Still, it was deathly cold.

With stiff fingers, Tharios plucked the flask from the air, looked inside the opening, and turned the container upside down. Something small, the size of a coin, fell into his outstretched palm.

The Archlord peered at the object for a moment, and then curled his fingers around the trinket in triumph.

DEATH
WASN
’
T
WHAT
she imagined. The Spirit River was warm and the water soft. Isiilde had never associated the reassuring pop and hiss of flame with the ol’ River. A warm touch informed her that she still had a body, a hollow, numb one that seemed very far away. A feather drifted over her ear, leaving it tingling with warmth to ward off a sudden chill. She tried to open her eyes, but failed. The nymph didn’t have the will to fight the embracing dark.

Another glowing presence kept the cold unknown at bay. The sun burned fiercely inside her breast. For her alone, it shone brighter than any summer day. Faces leered from the darkness, grasping hands strived to touch her, but her sun stood guard.

The darkness heaved, battering at the light. A wave of gleaming eyes and twisted corpses rose from a sea of blood. The wave crashed, drowning out the sun. The nymph drifted in the red sea, pulled down by clawing hands. She opened her mouth to scream, but the tangy, bitter taste of life rushed in. She was drowning. Chilling eyes stared from the cold depths, waiting. The nymph hid, retreating into a greater darkness, away from the hands, the eyes, and even her sun.

She let go of everything.

Isiilde drifted for eternity. And slowly her sun rose in the realm of nothing. Its orb was dim and distant and its light cold. There was no up or down, or right and left, only here. The frightening eyes and the hands dwelled on the outer limits. She feared moving towards the sun, and yet, a part of her remembered its caress.

A pang of loneliness clutched her, more keen than the fear. She raced back to the sun’s embrace, steeling herself against hate and memory and groping hands. The pain was brief, and the sun welcomed her as she huddled in its embrace, hiding from the horrors of living.

A touch pierced the darkness, reminding her of love. She opened her eyes. Stone pressed down, suffocating and lifeless.

“Isiilde,” a voice broke through fear. Grey eyes appeared overhead, twinkling like twin stars. A cascade of gleaming white hair blocked out the stone and coarse hands warmed her face. “Stay here, my dear. Stay with me.”

Isiilde forced her eyes open, focusing on the stars. “Marsais,” she whispered, and then gasped. Her body came back to her, a cold, dry husk.

“Drink this.” A gentle hand lifted her head, pressing something warm against her numb lips. She swallowed. The liquid burned down her throat. Exhausted, Isiilde closed her eyes.

“Stay with me, Isiilde.”

But she had already retreated back into the darkness.

❧

Voices entered confusion, low and murmuring. Another face hovered overhead, a dark brooding black bear with sapphire eyes. Isiilde blinked, tried to rouse herself to smooth the lines creasing the bear’s face, but it cost her too much. The bear laid a paw on her stomach and head, hurling her into the deepest silence of Somnial’s realm.

The peaceful crackle of a fire lured her from the silence, and slowly she became aware of her body, which was no longer cold. Heat surrounded her, seeping into her bones, and she stirred against a familiar form. Isiilde opened her eyes, and raised her head from Marsais’ chest. They lay on a bed of white furs beside a fire set deep in a stone pit. Flames danced against a bluish glow. She looked at the walls. Trailing vines clung to the stone in the corners. Silver veins streaked along the smooth walls like lightning, and a forest was etched into the wall’s surface. Isiilde could almost feel a breeze on the carved leaves.

Marsais’ arm slipped from around her shoulder, scratching the scar on his bare chest. She touched his clean-shaven cheek, and he instantly stirred. Eyes snapped opened, filled with relief. He caught her hand, and pressed the palm to his lips.

Weakened, she returned to his chest, but he would not let her rest. He slid to the side, reaching for a waterskin, and supported her head as he pressed it to her lips. Cool water slid down her throat.

“Not too much.” Marsais took the skin away and lowered her head onto the furs. Long, careful fingers brushed the hair from her brow. She studied his face, memorized his high brow and cheekbones and the sharp angles of his face, the creases of both sorrow and laughter, and the gentleness in his eyes.

“Everyone else is asleep.”

Her arms were heavy and her legs felt like stone, but she touched the back of his hand, pressing it against her cheek. After another draught slid down her throat, she spoke. “Tell me the rest,” she whispered.

Marsais did not have to ask—he knew. He smiled easily, and settled beside her, taking her into his arms. Nimble fingers moved of their own accord, caressing, stroking, reassuring himself that she was there as he finished the tale of the sea god’s daughter.

When his voice fell silent, she sighed against his chest. All that trouble for a woman he did not know.

“Am I that much trouble, Marsais?” she asked. Her eyes were heavy.

“No one compares to you.”

The nymph smiled, strangely pleased, before she surrendered to sleep.

THE
NYMPH
DANCED
around a blazing bonfire in a realm where fire roiled in the sky and licked the heavens. She twirled on a bed of glowing coals with movements as hypnotic as the fire’s caress. Hot tendrils licked her flesh, and her moans fed its hunger. With a hiss and a sizzle, a snake of fire was born, emerging from the embers, slithering up her legs, climbing higher, twining around a silky thigh and igniting fire.

Isiilde awoke with a gasp.

“Hmm, I believe you are feeling much better,” Marsais smiled knowingly. He sat cross-legged on a fur beside her bed, clean and shaved, and garbed in simple clothes of black that hugged his long limbs.

Hot and panting, she pushed the heavy fur blanket off her tingling body, relishing the delightful haze of pleasure. After her heartbeat slowed, she stretched with a sigh, gazing at the strange cavern with wonder.

“We’ve taken refuge with the Lome,” he explained, reading her thoughts. He picked up a wooden mug that held a foul smelling concoction and helped her drink. She wrinkled her nose, but sipped it without complaint. “Drink slowly, you’ve been—” he faltered, “asleep for two days, on and off.”

“
Two
days?” It seemed too long a time, but she was having trouble remembering from what beginning, or why. “What happened, Marsais? I remember a storm, but nothing else.”

“Finish drinking this first, then we’ll talk.” There was an ominous sound to his words, so she distracted herself by appreciating how the long winter underclothes hugged his body. Marsais looked like an acrobat. A tired one, with dark circles under his eyes.

“Is everything all right?” she asked when she had gulped the last drop of gruel.

“Not really.” He rubbed his short goatee, causing the coins to chime.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hmm, I’m wondering what to do with a certain nymph.”

“You could start by getting into bed with her,” she offered. The edges of his lips twitched, and he obliged her request, sliding beneath the blankets and gathering her into his arms.

“Is that better?”

A sigh escaped her lips as she pressed against him, inhaling a familiar scent mixed with exotic oils. “You took a bath.”

“Oenghus eventually chased me out.”

“You were worried about me?”

“I still am.” Clever fingers combed through her hair. “What
do
you remember?”

“I told you—the storm.”

“It had been storming all day. Something more precise would be appreciated.”

Silence followed, interspersed by the crackling fire. She didn’t want to remember anything.

Marsais pulled away, so he might look her in the eyes. He waited, neither amused nor angry, while she wracked her muddled mind for a way to escape his question.

“I’d rather not discuss it,” she murmured.

His eyes narrowed. A hulking presence pushed aside a curtain, saving her from the awkward moment. The heavy fur fell back across the opening.

“Curse it,” Oenghus rumbled, “Get your sack o’ bones out of—” The voice stopped mid-sentence and changed tone, to one of relief. “Well look who finally decided to join the living.”

Isiilde looked up at the towering Nuthaanian, who beamed down with unrestrained joy. In the next moment, he reached down, ruffling her hair. “You hungry, Sprite?”