Citadel of Fire (The Ronin Saga Book 2) (54 page)

Dagon snorted contemptuously. “And what do you propose to do now, Meira? Ask them to join us? Or would you leave them here and have them alert Sithel to our presence and what we’ve done?”

Meira growled, hating the man’s cold, calm logic. Without answering, she threaded bonds of light like shackles around their wrists, and a rare, intricate spell of flesh sunk into the Reavers’ flesh. The spell cut a connection in their mind between them and their spark.

Again Dagon laughed, as if amused. “Impressive. I’ve not seen or heard of those threads since the war of the Lieon. But how long do you honestly expect to hold them like that? Hmm? For you can only stop them from holding the spark as long as you are holding those threads.”

“I will hold them for as long as I can,” Meira said. “I will not allow any more death than is necessary.”

“Necessary…” Dagon said, repeating the word as if mockingly.

She ignored him and directed the nearest Reavers to haul their captives to their feet. “We shall take them with us. Watch over them closely, brothers.” She saw hard tears in Dimitri’s eyes, and she remembered they had lost one of their own as well, but he nodded, jaw set.

She turned her attention to the most important thing in the room.

There lay the symbol of the Citadel’s resistance.

She dropped to her knees at Ezrah’s side, surveying his condition. His gray hair was strewn across his face, and he was motionless. Panicked, she reached out and felt for the pulse of life, breathing a sigh of relief. Bruises, red marks, and scars marred his frail body. On his left side, his skin had been flayed, and a rib was exposed. Meira touched his skin. It was warm. Gathering power from the Fusing, she threaded flesh, knitting together muscle, tendon, and then finally skin. She saw smooth pale skin once more, but she was not done. She reached deeper and felt what she’d feared, broken bones.

Nearby, the Reavers made a circle around her, standing over the broken Arbiter, waiting anxiously. “He is alive,” she said, “but not by much.”

The others breathed sighs then Dagon spoke. “We need to move,” he announced firmly, “Others surely heard—they will be coming.”

“He’s right. Come, Meira. It’s time to go,” Finn said, grabbing her shoulder.

“Not yet. I need to set his bones first,” she said.

“Or?” Dagon questioned.

“Or moving him could be the cause of his death, and then all this would be for naught,” she declared, silencing the four-stripe. Dagon’s lips pressed tightly then he cursed, moving to watch the hallway.

But mending bone was easier said than done, setting and fusing bone was not simple or painless. With a breath, she tugged and bone shifted, grating.

Ezrah awoke, gasping loudly.

She didn’t slow. Meira fused the bone as his eyes rolled to the back of his head, showing only the bloodshot whites of his eyes. She finished at last, and Ezrah slumped back against the bloody floor, unconscious once more. Retreating, Meira broke the Fusing. Power left her, and she gasped as if she had drawn a dagger from her belly.

“I will do more for him when we get to safety. This will have to suffice for now,” she stated. “Let’s go.” Hutosh and Tugan lifted the Arbiter reverently, putting his thin arms around their shoulders, heading out of the ghastly chamber.

* * *

Meira gathered her robes about her, stepping over the dead bodies, entering the red marble hall.

“Where to?” Finn asked, eyeing the dozen multicolored hallways.

“This way,” she ordered and charged ahead, the others trailed with the captive Reavers in tow as they entered the black hallway. She heard a whimper of fear. It was Chloe. She had nearly forgotten the woman.
Even the weakest of us need purpose,
she reminded herself and touched the woman’s arm. “A light,” she commanded.

Reaver Chloe nodded, finding a bit of backbone, and a bright red flame lit the hall a dozen paces in either direction. They continued moving swiftly when Meira heard voices and footsteps echoing in the hall.

“Faster!” Dagon bellowed, and Meira’s legs pumped as they flew.

Still, the footsteps grew, louder and louder.

“They are gaining on us,” Hutosh cried.

The footsteps sounded on their heels, and then from everywhere. She realized it was not behind them, but ahead.

A sudden light bloomed in the hall beyond, blue and crackling.

Meira halted, the others’ ragged breaths loud in her ears.

“What is that?” Tugard questioned.

“Brighter,” she ordered of Chloe.

The light bloomed, growing, shedding light down the dark corridor to reveal feet, and then dark figures in gleaming chain and plate. Farbian guards, but they had an odd look to them, something strange in their black-rimmed eyes. There were dozens, if not more. At their head, stood a man in once-white robes, their hem dirtied and frayed with obvious spots of dried blood like a butcher’s apron.

Sithel.

She felt her stomach churn knowing that was the blood of her brothers, sisters, and even children. But her gaze was drawn to a bizarre glowing blue orb. It sat in the tyrant’s hand, crackling. Blue lightning veined across its radiant surface. “Traitors,” Sithel hissed, his tone slick. “Right beneath our noses like scurrying little rats.” Reaver Hutosh began to laugh sharply, but most were too filled with rage to find mirth in the Sithel’s taunting. He continued calmly, unperturbed. “That man you hold is guilty of betraying the Citadel. He is mine to do with as I will, for the sake of the Citadel’s protection.”

“Do you even know who he is?” Reaver Dagon questioned. “Whom you held like a beast in a cage?”

“An Arbiter,” Sithel answered, sounding bored, “which is just a man.” His men took another step forward, brandishing their blades. “Truly, he is no more than a relic, a dusty weapon that holds no use in our new world.” The way he said
new
put Meira’s hairs on end, goose bumps prickling along her arm.

“What new world?” she questioned.

“A world where only the strong survive,” he replied, lifting the ominous blue orb. Suddenly, the men in Meira’s possession, the captured Reavers, shrieked and fell to the ground. Blood ran from their eyes and ears, and an orange light was sucked from their bodies into the air until they fell, lifeless.

Meira’s breath was lodged in her throat. It had all happened so fast… One man still gaped like a fish dying upon dry land. He reached out to her, desperately pleading. She released their now useless bonds and knelt at the man’s side to heal him. She touched his head. Pain lanced through her as the spark fizzled and her hand grew numb. She pulled away from him, realizing that whatever malady he suffered from could not be healed by her touch. With terror in the Reaver’s eyes, he gave his final breath.

“You’re a demon, a monster,” she said slowly, rising with anger trembling through her limbs. Hand still numb, her power grew inside of her. She felt the others summon the spark as well, preparing to level Sithel and his dark men at her command.

Sithel laughed, the sound echoing off the walls. “Demon? Hardly. I am the purification… Simply the fire that burns the dead wood, just like those captured fools. They were weak, and so they deserved death.” And he smiled, his worm-like lips twisting in what was a dark mockery of compassion. “Admit it, Meira, you were just too kind or perhaps too soft to give it to them.”

“You’re mad,” she breathed. “You’ve murdered Reavers and Devari in cold blood and fractured the Citadel! You have broken us!” The fire roared to life in her hand and the other Reavers summoned water, stone, metal and more. Yet confusion crawled its way into Meira’s shell of confidence for Sithel merely smiled deeper.

The man shrugged, orb bobbing in the darkness. “What you see as lives that are worth saving I see as broken pieces, men and women unfit to wear the mantle of protector. Each held pitiful amounts of the spark. As for the breaking… Well, oftentimes a broken sword needs to be shattered in order to be made anew.”

“And that gives you the right to kill them? Slaughter them without mercy?”

“They were not like you or me, Meira. Weakness is death, strength is life,” he chanted. “This I have come to know. The Citadel was weak, like I once was, but no more.” Zealous passion filled his voice, gaining strength as he spoke, “There once was a time when the world valued strength above all… but no longer. The cowards of this world, they fear power, they fear their own strength, and so they sit and do
nothing
.” Then he cursed almost beneath his breath, barely audible.
“I did nothing.
”

I…?
Meira wondered

Sithel suddenly began to shake, his words punctuated by a voice trembling with fury and pain, his mad eyes roving in memory. “
Beaten
,” he cursed, “lashed by chain and whip and made to serve on hand and foot… Treated like a useless human refuse… like metal for the forge beaten until the last glowing spark of life flees the broken body… ” He growled, arm shaking.

Meira and the other Reavers at her side watched, confused and shaken. With every word, the blue veins glowed brighter along his pale face, pulsing as if ready to burst.

Until at last…

“No,” Sithel said with a single, even breath. He looked back to Meira, gaze rising, fervor still roiling in his eyes, but his madness seemed under control. “Make no mistake, my dear Reaver, the Citadel
will
rise again, and strength will reign supreme.”

“All your words are oiled in the mire of lies,” she replied biting off every word, though her voice sounded soft after the man’s ranting.

“And yet, here you stand, a living symbol that I speak the truth. That weakness is death, and strength, life.”

“What are you talking about?” she seethed.

Sithel’s grin grew. “What was his name again? That man… a pitiful one-stripe Reaver?” Meira choked, tensing. “Ah yes, Morgan—that was his name, was it not?”

Meira felt her blood freeze. “How?”

“Ah, but I know much more than you can imagine, dear sister,” he answered with a haughty grin in the blue orb’s light. “But enough talk. If you will not return the Arbiter, then I will give you what you deserve. A traitor’s death.” He turned to his men. “Leave none alive,” he commanded and his men stalked forward.

“Kill them,” she ordered her own people, and power roared to life in the halls. Balls of flame and orbs of frozen ice soared through the air, stone rumbled, lightning flashed, flesh sizzled, and men screamed and—

It ended.

As surely and as powerfully as it had begun, all forms of magic fizzled in the air, dying just as it reached Sithel’s dark men. And then it hit her—

Meira cried out as the spark burned inside her, shriveling.

“What is happening?” Chloe cried.

Other Reavers shrieked too, grasping at the walls, at their hearts, as something ate at them from the inside, gnawing away their insides. Feeding on their spark.

Pain and horror filled Meira.
What is this?
She looked up and saw the orb. It glowed fiercely, as if alive. An orange essence was pulled into the air as
the spark was sucked from her skin. The others reached out, trying to grab their life force as it was drawn towards the glowing blue stone.
The orb is the cause,
she realized. It was feasting upon their power. If she could only stop it! She gripped her spark, reaching for the dwindling bud of light. It was racing away, but she held on tenaciously, as if gasping for a last breath.
No! I cannot let him win!
Dredging every last bit of spark she had in her, Meira attacked. Threads formed on her fingertips. She shot them out, forming spears of fire. They reached Sithel’s grinning face, and then, just like the other threads, vaporized into nothing. With that, Meira fell. Light and pain and suffering consumed her from the inside out. She realized she was screaming, as if crude daggers were carving out her heart, slowly and painstakingly. Thoughts stuttered beneath the devouring pain.

Distantly, she saw Ezrah, lying upon the cold stone. Blood ran from his head and upon the blackened stone in the fading light.

There is no hope,
she thought.

All is lost…

* * *

“Think!” Meira shouted.

But it was so hard…

Visions flashed, screams from her, from all of them, still rising in the air. Gasping, Meira saw the knee-high boots of Sithel march calmly towards her. She clawed at the stone, trying to crawl away as pain racked her limbs. He grabbed her chin, forcing her eyes up as her pain began to cloud and dim her vision. Her last image would be his greasy smile.
Please,
not that.
He held a dagger, running it closer to her neck. But she couldn’t move, pain sapped her limbs of strength.

Because you are weak…
Sithel’s words echoed in her head.
No
. Sithel was wrong, again
. Strength is not everything, and it is not always so easily seen.