Blood of the Earth (19 page)

“I’d like that, but I have to make sure my wife is asleep first,” he whispered.

“Of course, My Lord, I’ll be waiting for you,” she said with another suggestive smile and a flip of her hair.

The moment Lena left the room, Alexander bolted to the door of his bedchamber. Isabel was just strapping on her sword. She was wearing her armor and was ready for battle.

“Shivini tried to seduce me,” Alexander whispered, still a little taken aback by such a tactic. He couldn’t understand why the shade had opted for that approach, and his lack of understanding worried him.

“Chloe, can you find Lucky and see if he’s finished with the transference potion.”

“Of course, My Love,” she said as she flitted up to kiss him on the cheek. “Be careful.” She buzzed into a ball of light and was gone.

“The shade invited me back to Lena’s quarters for a massage,” Alexander said.

Isabel frowned. “What game is he playing? What could he possibly hope to gain?”

The realization hit Alexander like a sledgehammer.

“He wants to corrupt me so he can possess me,” he said. “Remember when Lucky told us about the shades. They need their victims to feel guilt or despair before they can possess them. He’s trying to set me up so he can take me.”

“That’s pretty calculating, even for a shade,” Isabel said.

“Yeah, but it makes sense.”

“All right, so what do we do?”

“I go to Lena’s quarters and play along until I can get the collar around her neck.”

Isabel grimaced. “Lena’s such a sweet and innocent young woman. I hate to sacrifice her.”

“Me too, but we have to stop the shade,” Alexander said.

“You’re sure there isn’t another way?”

“No. But I’m out of ideas,” Alexander said. “I don’t want to do this either, but we can’t afford to let the shade roam free. It’s too dangerous.”

Isabel reluctantly nodded agreement.

She and Boaberous waited around the corner from Lena’s door as Alexander knocked softly.

Lena opened the door wearing a nightgown that was more revealing than Alexander would have liked.

“Come in, My Lord,” she said with a breathy voice. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Alexander smiled even as he surged forward and snapped the collar around her neck in one quick motion. Her eyes went wide and then she snarled as she tore free of Alexander’s grasp and bolted for the balcony. Before he could stop her, she leapt over the railing, plummeting thousands of feet to the plain below.

Alexander was stunned by the sudden turn of events. He’d been so sure of his plan, but Shivini had turned the tables on him yet again, and Lena had been lost in the process. Alexander swallowed hard at the realization that he’d played a part in her death. If he’d thought through his plan more carefully, she might have survived, or at least her death would have meant something. This was so pointless.

Then he realized he would have to tell Adele about her death. He dreaded causing her such pain.

Isabel and Boaberous came up behind him.

“What happened?” Isabel asked. “Where’s Lena?”

“She jumped off the balcony,” Alexander said. “I killed her.”

“Oh, Alexander, I’m so sorry,” Isabel said. “But you didn’t kill her. The shade did.”

“I played a part,” Alexander said. Lena’s death seemed like the last straw. After seeing all of the forces arrayed against him and then watching Lena die for no good reason, he felt like something snapped inside him. Despair flooded into him, filling him with emptiness. He’d only felt such a crushing feeling of hopelessness during the mana fast … except this was worse because it was real.

He returned to his quarters in a fog, not really knowing where he was going or why. He let Isabel guide him and simply put one foot in front of the other until he was in his sitting room.

“Alexander, are you all right?” Isabel asked as he slumped into a chair.

“I’m fine,” he said without emotion.

“Don’t let this get to you,” Isabel said. “You aren’t responsible for her death, so don’t let it weigh on your conscience so much.”

“But I am,” he mumbled. “She’s dead because I couldn’t stop the shade from killing her, just like I can’t stop Phane or Zuhl from bringing war and devastation to every corner of the Seven Isles.”

“You must fight the despair, My Love,” Chloe said. “It is as much your enemy as Phane and it will defeat you just as completely if you let it.”

“Look, I know you’re both trying to help, but I just need to be alone right now,” Alexander said as he got up and shuffled off to his meditation chamber.

He kept playing the scene over and over in his mind. Lena was an innocent young woman with her whole life ahead of her and his decisions had led to her death. He knew in the back of his mind that Shivini had been the real cause, but he was so distraught by all that he’d seen in his clairvoyant reconnaissance that he couldn’t seem to make reason count. All that mattered was the insurmountable odds he faced.

It all seemed so hopeless.

He found himself surrendering to the despair, embracing it as if that would make him feel better.

It didn’t. He slipped into an emotional malaise where he simply couldn’t bring himself to care about anything. It was almost like his psyche was defending the despair by keeping all those things in his life that he was genuinely grateful for out of his mind while allowing all of the things that he feared to run rampant through his thoughts.

One terrible possible future flashed through his imagination after the next—and all of them were his fault: for not stopping Phane, for not stopping Zuhl, for not stopping the shades. A part of him railed against what he was doing to himself, tried to argue reason against the emotional onslaught, but reason had no power in the face of the guilt and fear and despair he was feeling.

He felt numb and dead inside. He felt nothing except emptiness and loss.

Suddenly, quite unexpectedly, he was scattered into the firmament. With a rush of fear, he scrambled to find a place of safe harbor where he could take refuge against the abrupt dissolution of his consciousness across the wave of creation.

If he’d never experienced this before, he might have been lost, but he’d faced it in the past. All of the despair and hopelessness he’d been feeling just moments before evaporated in the face of the need to survive.

He withdrew a single scrap of his essence into the place of calm stillness within his psyche, the place where the witness lived. From there he searched out the rest of his memories, experiences, and personality traits—carefully and painstakingly reassembling himself into one cohesive consciousness. Once he felt whole again, he spread out across the firmament looking for anything he might have missed, but he found nothing more of himself lost in the ocean of creation.

He was whole once more.

With an act of will, he tried to return to himself, but couldn’t. Fear coursed through him as he was repelled from entering his own body. He coalesced his awareness over himself and saw himself talking with Boaberous.

“Go find the Guild Mage,” he heard himself say. “The shade has Isabel. She can’t be trusted. Tell the Rangers to capture her and hold her until I return.”

“Lord Reishi, my place is with you,” Boaberous said. “Send another to fetch the Guild Mage.”

“No!” he heard himself shout. “Go now! It’s Isabel’s only hope.”

Boaberous hesitated for a moment before he nodded and ran down the hall.

Alexander’s fear spiked when Shivini, in possession of his body, looked up at his disembodied consciousness and smiled.

Alexander sent his awareness into his bedchamber to find Isabel. She was strapping on her armor. Chloe was flying around in a circle.

“Hurry, I can’t find his mind,” she said. “I fear the worst.” His fairy familiar sounded distraught.

“You’re sure he’s still alive?” Isabel asked with a hint of panic.

“I would know at once if he’d been killed,” Chloe said. “He still lives, but his mind is elsewhere.”

“Chloe, go find Lucky,” Isabel said. “Tell him we need a way to put Alexander to sleep without hurting him.”

“At once,” Chloe said, then buzzed into a ball of light and vanished into the aether.

Alexander thought furiously. He needed to find someone who was sleeping. With a flick of his mind he was floating in Abigail’s quarters. She was breathing deeply, sound asleep. He carefully but urgently insinuated his awareness into her mind. In her dream, she was standing on the watchtower of Valentine Manor, looking out over the range land at an approaching thunderstorm. She always liked to watch the lightning … she said it looked like the gods were fighting.

She was startled momentarily when Alexander materialized beside her.

“Abigail, I need your help. Shivini has me.”

Her eyes went wide with fear, and Alexander was abruptly ejected from her mind as she sat bolt upright and went to her armoire. Within moments she was dressed and pulling on her boots. Alexander sent his mind back to his body and saw himself heading with haste toward the paddock.

Shivini glanced back at him with a knowing smile.

“Feels so helpless, doesn’t it?” He paused as if waiting for an answer. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t respond because you don’t have a body anymore. I must say, Alexander, I’ve never taken one such as you before. Usually I can hear my victims screaming from deep within, but you are silent. Pity.”

He watched the shade order a horse made ready. The Ranger tried to argue, tried to suggest an honor guard, but Alexander ordered him to saddle just his horse, stating that he was leaving on an urgent mission that he alone must attend to.

A few minutes later he was riding across the ribbon of a bridge spanning the chasm between the paddock and the bridge platform. As he passed under the arch onto the platform, the bridge vanished.

Alexander heard a woman yelling from the paddock and sent his awareness over to the altercation. Three Rangers were attempting to restrain Isabel.

“Let go of me!” she screamed at them. “Shivini has Alexander. You’re letting him get away.”

Boaberous was there. Kelvin came into the paddock a few seconds later.

“Shivini, we will find a way to drive you from Isabel,” Kelvin said with an undercurrent of anger.

“I’m not Shivini!” Isabel railed at them as they held her arms. “Alexander’s left the Keep. You have to let me go after him.”

“Lord Reishi himself told me that Lady Reishi is possessed by the shade,” Boaberous said. “Her word is suspect.”

“I agree,” Kelvin said. “If you truly are Isabel, then I apologize and I trust that you will understand as well as any the necessity of such precautions.”

Isabel suddenly realized that she was on her own. Shivini had used the most powerful weapon on the battlefield against her to devastating effect. A simple lie had bought the shade the time he needed to get to the Gate with Alexander and the Sovereign Stone before they could stop him.

She stopped struggling and sent her mind to Asteroth. Her wyvern steed came awake with a start as she called him to her. In the distance she heard a roar. The significance of it was lost on her captors.

“You’re making a mistake, Kelvin,” Isabel said calmly, “a mistake that could doom us all.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” Kelvin said, “but I have to believe Alexander’s word. Lieutenant Grudge was sent to warn me of your possession. Until we can be sure that you’re not under the shade’s control, we have to hold you.”

“If Alexander sent you to warn the Mage, then where is he?” Isabel asked Boaberous. “Aren’t you supposed to be protecting him?”

A Ranger was quickly approaching from the stables but before he could arrive, Asteroth landed in their midst with a roar. Everyone was stunned by the sudden noise and the presence of the giant wyvern … everyone except Isabel.

In the moments before her steed landed, she had called up a powerful anger born of need and fear, focused her mind, and cast her shield spell. The two Rangers holding her arms were repelled as the shield took on form and substance. Isabel didn’t hesitate. She bolted toward Asteroth in a headlong sprint.

Kelvin whipped his hammer off his back and brought it down onto the paddock, sending a shock wave through the ground that knocked Isabel sprawling. She hit hard and was momentarily stunned, but her shield protected her from the brunt of the impact. She rolled onto her back and unleashed a light-lance spell at the Guild Mage. She took care to aim for the center of his chest, knowing that his dragon-scale armor would protect him from the damage while still sending him to the ground, dazzled and stunned.

He fell back as the light stabbed out at him. Boaberous tried to reach Isabel, but Asteroth whipped his tail around and smacked him hard with the flat side of his bone blade, sending the giant hurtling to the ground.

Isabel was up in an instant, racing for her steed. She mounted, not caring that she wasn’t wearing her riding armor or that Asteroth wasn’t saddled. She desperately needed the speed that only he could give her.

With a thought, she commanded Asteroth to launch, sending dust swirling all around the paddock. She goaded her steed toward the edge of the paddock and the open sky, clinging to his neck for her very life.