Memory's Wake (28 page)

Thayl pointed to Eloryn, and a man behind him moved forward with ropes to bind her. Eloryn’s eyes snapped wide and she turned to Memory. “Mem, run, RUN!”

Eloryn struggled against the man, but was small in his hands, easy to hold.

Memory’s eyes flickered between Eloryn, Lucan’s body, and Roen, fallen loosely against the side of a wall, his shoulder pushed out at a horrifying angle. From this distance, she couldn’t tell what blood on him might be new. Her own body was as still as his.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt her. You said you would tell me who I am,” she whispered.

Thayl chuckled without humor. Approaching her, he dropped his voice to a tone meant only for her. “You still don’t know? Interesting you could spend so long with her and not realize you are sisters, but maybe not so surprising. I’m sorry I left you this way, barely human,” he said. He really did look sorry.

Eloryn… my sister?
Memory’s chest hammered like a mallet on a mattress.

He stopped an arm’s reach from her and began pulling the fingers of his glove, loosening it, slipping it off his scarred hand. “I don’t know how you’ve found your way back here from Hell, but it is fortunate. The ritual to steal your power was interrupted, leaving you like this, this shell. But I can end your suffering. I can finish taking the rest of your soul.”

Memory jolted into movement. Her whole body screamed for flight and she spun to run away. The leader of the wizard hunters stood right behind her. He grabbed her by the throat, turning her face back to Thayl, pinning her against his body in an unyielding grip.

Thayl lifted his bare hand, twisted with carved runes. It began to glow.

He had done it, stolen all her life, her memories, her
soul
. Left her like this. She tore breaths through her crushed throat, her eyes wild. The fire inside her lit, burning her inside and out. A blazing pulse burst from her chest, ached down her limbs and tingled in the tips of her fingers and toes. She wouldn’t let him take whatever she had left. She would use whatever magic she had to stop him. She screamed, expending all the air from her lungs, bellowing the force out with everything she had.

Silence followed. Dust and leaves lifted from the ground, floating upwards. Rain hung suspended in the air.

The world pounded and lit around her like a golden supernova.

All Memory could tell was that she was no longer held, and hoped the same for Eloryn. She screamed for her to run. Acrid smoke filled the air, and she choked on it. She lay on her stomach in the mud, falling again when she tried to get up, her body quivering. She could hear movement around her, men coughing and calling out in shock and pain. The slow rain barely swayed the blinding cloud around them.

Thayl bellowed from nearby, “Catch the girls. Don’t let them get away!”

Memory heard fumbling behind her, and a shrill note whistled. Unable to lift herself up, she crawled along the ground. A hand grabbed her ankle with vicious strength, dragging her back, then pulling her up to her feet by a fistful of her hair.

Massive wings beat above them, clearing away the smoke cloud. Men were sprawled throughout the square, dazed and muddy. Memory saw Eloryn on her feet, no one else around her, heading toward Memory instead of running the other way.

A pale shimmer of shadow in the dusk passed over Eloryn, and she froze. In a rush of movement she disappeared under a mountain of black scales and leathery skin. A sickly wet scraping sound could be heard through the square, and the dragon rose from its crumpled position, beating its wings and lifting from the ground. Inside a crushing claw it held Eloryn, talons slid deep into her flesh.

When its feet left the ground, it sprang its claw open and she dropped onto the dirt like a bloody, broken, porcelain doll. The dragon casually lifted back into the sky to circle above.

Eloryn lay still on the ground. Blood pooled around her, mixing with the mud.

“No!”

Memory’s mouth hadn’t moved, as much as she’d felt the cry tear through her chest.

It had been Thayl who screamed. “Loredanna, no!”

Thayl turned fiercely on the hunter with the scarred face who still held Memory. “You! What did you do?”

Oh God, Eloryn.
Memory’s eyes watered, her face pulled taut by the fist in her hair. She felt too weak to move, the rain freezing her skin. Thayl’s fury terrified her. She twisted limply, trying to see Eloryn over the hunter’s shoulder. He squeezed her tighter, and wincing at him, she noticed a thin silver chain running around his neck, and the glint of white bone.

The scarred hunter yelled back at Thayl, hurting her ears. “Only what you told me to!”

“I should never have allowed you to keep that beast. I said to catch them, not kill her!”

Wrenching her body around, Memory spat in the hunter’s face, clawing vainly against him with her black nails. He turned to her in shock.

“Stupid bitch, this is your fault.” He let her go and brought his hand down over the base of her neck. The blow chattered her teeth, and threw sparks of light into her eyes. She squeezed her hand closed.
Just a bit of a distraction and a flick of the wrist.

The man grabbed her by the hair again, pulling her back up. She looked him in the eye with a smile soaked in tears. Holding up her hand, she revealed the delicate finger sized flute.

“No!” the scarred man bellowed as though she’d ripped out his heart.

Every man in the square turned to stare at her, uncommon fear in their eyes. In the distance, she saw Roen stirring.

Time slowed.

The scarred hunter snatched for the flute.

Thayl blasted a bolt of violent magic at her.

She clenched her hand with a force that drew blood with her fingernails. The old, rigid bone within it broke into pieces.

The dragon roared.

And Memory waited to die.

Somehow, she felt nothing. The force of Thayl’s magic flew at her, went straight through and killed the scarred wizard hunter behind her instantly. He fell forward, on top of Memory, pushing her down into the mud. His hand was still tangled in her hair. She cried out, pinned on her back beneath the dead hunter, staring up into the falling rain.

High above, little more than a spot in the sky, the dragon sang a deep, mournful cry that would be heard throughout Avall. Then it fell like a stone. It took down three men before the others knew what had happened.

Memory pushed at the dead weight on her with one arm, her other twisted beneath her. She pushed her feet at the ground and they slid in the mud.

Bloodcurdling terror screamed out all around. Roen moved toward her. She cried out for him but it was lost amongst the wailing of the dragon and men.

Roen stopped before he reached her, bending down to something she couldn’t see. He bared his teeth, bent forward and scooped up Eloryn’s body. He almost fell as he lifted her with one arm, the other hanging limp. He turned, stumbling, running, through the chaos around him, away from Memory, into the surrounding trees.

“Roen? Roen, no, I’m here!” Memory screamed. Her sanity tearing away in strips, she writhed like the possessed. Her consciousness faded out then in. Her insides boiled. The knife kept in her corset scorched her chest, heated to burning.  She found herself free, the dead body of the scarred hunter face down beside her.

She rolled onto all fours, panting. The dragon threw itself over and over at the men running through the square as they tried to find cover, help injured friends, make their escape. Blood covered the ground as though it were the rain that fell. A man in leather armor lay next to her, staring with dead, black-brown eyes. Perceval.

Illness overtook her like a knife in the stomach. Memory vomited wretchedly. She coughed it out, eyes and nose stinging raw. She wobbled and stood up on shaking feet, taking a step to follow Roen. A gust of wind from the dragon’s wings threw her back on the ground.

She tried to stand again, and as she reached her feet, there were arms around her. They lifted her, cradling her, wrapping her chest, pulling her off her feet. She wrestled against them but the arms were like a vice around her, pushing her against a wild, scarred body as it ran. Taking her away from the slaughter of the men. Away into the forest. Away from Roen and Eloryn.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Under the cover of the trees the light rain barely penetrated through. Only the odd, heavy drop fell between the changing leaves, hitting him as he ran.

Memory swore and screamed in his arms, blending with the tortured howls of the men behind them. He hadn’t been there to keep her safe. Mina had kept him away, kept him even though he wanted to go to Memory. He’d let her be hurt again.

Memory slammed her knee into his gut so suddenly he fell out of his run, dropping her.

She slipped forward, trying to run back toward the danger. He pounced, tackling her down. They skidded across slimy leaves. The ground opened up beneath them. He twisted around, pulling her on top of him, wrapping his body around hers. They tumbled down the slope of a gully in an avalanche of red and gold.

He landed hard on his back, and darkness took him.

Gasping, sobbing breaths woke him. His arms were still protectively wrapped around the small weight of her, her dark hair falling in his face.

She thrashed in his arms. “Let me go!” she squealed. “Don’t touch me!”

I broke the rules again. But I had to, to save you.
His arms went loose with guilt and she pushed out, bursting from their blanket of leaves and scrambling across the ground away from him. She hit the water-carved earth of the steep gully wall and clawed against it.

He pulled himself up slowly, shaky from the fall.

“I need to get back to Lory and Roen,” she said, not at all to him. She tried to climb the slope. Too weak. She tore her hands at the rocks and exposed roots, shrieking at them.

He reached out to her.

She beat his hand back, staring at him with ferocious red-rimmed eyes. “I said, don’t touch me!”

She forced her back into the dripping dirt wall, cowering from him. “Who are you? Why are you following me? Was it you who hurt me?”

She didn’t know him at all - he already knew this - but that she could think he was the one who hurt her like that opened him raw. He frowned, looking back toward the solace of the surrounding forest. Too hard to find the right words.

“What do you want from me?” she sobbed.

He knelt in front of her. What did he want? There’d only been one dream for so long.

“Hope,” he said, shrugging as he forced his words to work, “just to find you again. Keep you safe, like I couldn’t before.”

An angry fire spread in him to say it. He knew what that man on the children’s home staff did to her, and he could never do anything to stop it. He was too young, too weak back then. Perfect bully bait, a smaller than average boy who studied hard and had a talent for music. It was her that saved him from beatings from the older boys. He swore to her that he’d protect her one day. She had laughed at him in response. Kindly.

“How do you know me?” Tears still streamed down her face, but her sobbing lessened.

He nodded. “From the other world. You don’t remember.”

“Other world?” She buckled forward, clutching her stomach as though in pain. “I don’t remember anything. Thayl took everything from me, my memories, my... everything.”