Emergence (Book 2) (37 page)

The weapon was damn near long enough to be a short sword, but still not a match for the length of steel Berk held. Maybe against someone with less skill. But Bolin had seen Berk fight, and he didn't like his chances of coming out unscathed
, not without killing the man, and he really didn't want to do that.

"We don't have time for this,"
Bolin said.

"Arm yourself."

"And if I don't?"

Berk rubbed his hand across his forehead but kept his sword leveled at Bolin's chest. "Please, General, I'd rather not kill an unarmed man. I'd rather not kill you at all, but I don't have any choice. I wish I did. Trust me. I didn't mean to bring Ciara here and I don't mean to--"

He grimaced, shook his head again and shifted back, the tip of his sword lowering. Bolin moved. He dropped his shoulder and shoved up under Berk's guard, knocking him backwards, his fingers closing around the wrist of Berk's sword arm. But the man took advantage of Bolin's momentum and let himself fall back. His free hand closed on a fistful of Bolin's tunic, dragging him down. He brought his feet up into Bolin's gut as they hit the ground, thrusting upwards, and sending Bolin somersaulting over his head.

Bolin scrambled to his feet with just enough time to throw himself backwards, narrowly avoiding a gutting by Berk's upwards, backhanded slice. Fabric tore, followed by a burn across his collarbone that told of skin laid open by sharp steel. Then the blade whistled in waist high as Berk changed his grip overhead and brought it arcing down. Bolin pivoted on his right foot, spinning and putting himself inside Berk's reach so his sword arm encircled him. He slammed his elbow back, swearing when it
crunched against mail.

Berk shoved him away, and they turned to face one another. Somewhere behind Bolin, Donovan faced off with Ciara, struggling to control the power that screamed yet another challenge from overhead. Berk's gaze flicked to the bloom of red marking Bolin's tunic, slid over his shoulder at the scene beyond and came back. Confusion danced in his eyes. He looked down to where the discarded dagger lay
, and kicked it, sending it skittering across stone toward Bolin.

"Pick it up," he said.

"So you can feel better about what you're doing?" Bolin shook his head. "No."

The soldier's jaw worked, and a tremor ran through him. "Damn the unholies, pick it up."

"You're fighting the wrong person, Berk," Bolin said.

"I have to!" He yelled the words, his face twisted with emotion and pain. And then he dropped to his knees, his head bowed and fists balled against his temples
, though he kept hold of his sword. When Bolin took a step toward him the blade angled in threat. "Don't."

Berk
shoved himself back to his feet with obvious effort.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Noise from the stairs behind him caused Berk to turn, and Bolin dashed forward. He snatched the dagger off the ground by its blade as he past, and swung the grip toward Berk's head. It caught him solidly just as he started to turn back, enough force behind it to daze him. Bolin followed it up with a punch to the jaw that completed the job, and Berk crumpled unconscious to the ground just as the Emperor arrived.

"See to him," Bolin said.

And Andrakaos's roar deafened them all.

***

Andrakaos folded his wings close to his body and dove, the air rushing past him as the city below grew larger in his vision until it obliterated all else. Only then did he snap his wings open again. The maneuver sent him careening back into the blue of the open sky, reveling in his own strength. Muscles strained to lift himself higher. Currents moved like water in the sky, carrying him higher again until the clouds became the ground, and above him the sun looked near enough to touch. Nostrils flared, filling lungs with cold, clean air that held not the hint of scent. Higher still, and breath puffed out before him. Ice coated the edges of his shimmering black scales like a touch of silver moonlight.

This was freedom.

He dove again, slicing through the air, shredding the clouds, streaking toward the earth with water streaming from narrowed eyes. His heart slammed in his throat. Exhilaration. A twinge of fear if something should go wrong. If this time his wings weren't strong enough to bear the strain.

He pushed them open, just enough to send him skimming above the trees, bending the tips of them with the rush of wind that rode
in his wake. The smell of the river mingled with that of pines and men, the musk of livestock. He turned back toward the wall. Like great sails opening to catch the breath of the gods, the wings unfurled and Andrakaos touched down.

***

Ciara's head whipped to the side, her ears ringing with the force of Donovan's backhanded blow. A second one brought tears springing to her eyes, and sent her staggering to the ground.

"I am done playing games," he said. "And it seems I no longer need you."

Ciara looked up through blurred eyes. A hulking shape perched on top of the nearby tower, wings mantled like a hawk guarding its dinner. Donovan faced the creature and began to chant. The words slithered through Ciara, trailing hot-cold fingers across her nerves, tugging her to her feet. The creature tilted its huge head and surveyed the sigils dancing in the air before it with clear, obsidian eyes.

Andrakaos?

The head jerked her way.
We are magnificent.

Ciara swallowed. The thing her power had become no longer had the faintest hint of transparency about it. Corporeal, a being of sinew and bone, the aged tower roof groaned under its substance as Andrakaos shifted his weight.

How?

Does it matter? We are. At long last.

Donovan's fingers moved. Andrakaos roared in pain, echoed by Ciara's own scream. Donovan turned a curious look Ciara's way, and the scene repeated itself.

"Fascinating," Donovan said. "It seems you are not so easily removed from him as I had thought. That will be inconvenient."

"For you, perhaps," Ciara said.

Her fingers moved of their own accord, scribing a quick symbol through the air and then flicking it toward Donovan. He did nothing as it hurtled toward him. The sigil stopped short of its target and hung suspended, spinning slowly. Donovan reached out to touch it, and Ciara grimaced. She shook herself, formed another symbol and then another, and fired one after another at Donovan until he stood surrounded by a glimmering wall of them.

"Shall I tell you a secret, Daughter?" Donovan began to move the sigils about, changing their order and very subtly altering their shape. Each time he touched one Ciara felt as though someone dragged broken glass across her skin. "I never meant for you to live this long. You were merely a vessel. This power was not meant for you to keep, but only to bring into this world so that I could call it forth when my plans had come to fruition. Had I found you as an infant, I would have taken it then, and killed you without a thought. A shame for both of us that I did not. Your mother should not have thwarted my efforts. She would not have died had she not defied me. She would have sat by my side as I promised. But she saw fit to go back on her word."

His words crashed into Ciara as incoherent bits of jabber until she sorted through them, trying to make sense of them. "You're a liar."

"On occasion. This, however, is not one. Your mother proved to be only slightly less ambitious than I. Perhaps she sought to keep you to herself. Perhaps she was merely too soft to part herself from you. Which seems to make her death your fault. You truly are a harbinger of death, are you not?"

Donovan's eyes glittered through the haze between them. Ciara shook her head. "I don't believe you."

"Believe this, I lay claim to that which is mine."

He pushed his hands forward and the wall of magic he had restructured flashed around Ciara, closing in like a fist and severing her connection to Andrakaos. He roared loud enough to shake the foundations and threw himself skyward. Ciara thrashed against the light hemming her in on all sides. She struck against it with her fists, called on her earth magic, tried everything she could to break free. Sweat poured freely down her face, trickling between her brea
sts, her chest heaving with effort. The air became close, so thick she couldn't drag in enough to fill her lungs. Black specks crowded her vision and she slumped to the ground, the cold stone rushing up to catch her as she fell.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Donovan moved further down the wall without sparing his daughter a second look. The priestess and mages shadowed his moves to keep him within the circle of their working. High above them Andrakaos spiraled through the air, screaming in challenge. Each ground rumbling bugle hit Donovan like a bludgeon to the head. The crone's power had picked a bad time to rebel. It twisted around his own, sharp tines digging in and wrenching it away even as he fought to form the ancient words of binding. His head spun, his vision blurring. He needed only to get the handful of syllables out of his mouth yet his tongue seemed to thicken behind his teeth making speech difficult. Concentration proved even more laborious, and more than once he lost the thread of what he did, forcing him to begin anew.

"Your soldier boy failed," the priestess said, scorn dripping from her voice.

Donovan could not spare the time or the effort to look for himself. "Then you had better not." Strange that those words flowed easily. "Kill them. And do not fail me this time."

"Pah." She spat. "The Lady's power will destroy you. It is too strong to be manipulated. You are losing."

"If I lose, you die. Now deal with them."

The priestess bared her teeth in a feral grin
. The mages' working wavered as she pulled herself from it, and they struggled to bolster it. Very soon, however, Donovan would not need it, or them.

***

Bolin rushed toward Ciara, Dain at his side, Ariadne and Nialyne trailing. Before they could reach her Donovan's witch left the circle she and the mages had created, and stalked their way. Bolin grimaced.

"See to Ciara," he said over his shoulder. "I'll deal with this one."

No sooner had he said the words than a thick, black stream of Dominion magic rippled toward them. Rock crumbled as Bolin deflected it into the outer wall. The next one came even faster, directed at Dain. Bolin didn't think. He shoved Dain out of the way and took the full brunt of the blast square in the chest. It slammed him back into the parapet, and left him struggling to breathe. Before he could recover she launched another assault, and Bolin dove to the side, landing hard and rolling. He tried to gain his feet, but his legs wouldn't support him. Bracing against the inner wall he heaved upwards.

"Pity," the witch said as she sauntered closer. "I'd hoped to keep you for myself."

Bolin braced himself. The Dominion magic clawed inside him, sapping his strength.

"He'll trade you to the highest bidder, you know that," Bolin said
, gasping. "You are nothing more to him than chattel."

She shrugged, but he saw the flicker of anger in her eyes. "A game within a game, all toward the same end."

"I didn't think you enjoyed being a pawn."

"When this world is his I shall sit by his side."

Bolin barked out a harsh laugh. "Are you truly that blind? Does he strike you as the kind of man who will share power? You're less than nothing to him."

"And you know less than nothing."

The priestess raised her hand. Before Bolin could react, Nialyne stepped in front of him. Panic surged through him when he realized what she intended. She locked her gaze with his, a fierce light in her eyes, her mouth set in a firm line. Bolin shook his head. Nialyne's hand moved.

"No!" The scream of terror ripped his throat raw but couldn't stop what happened next.

The magic of the Greensward sped toward Bolin an instant before the Dominion magic hit Nialyne. Her back arched, her face contorting in pain. Even as she crumpled to the ground, Bolin channeled the intense, pure energy she had sent his way, and thrust it back at the witch, magnified ten-fold. She shrieked, her limbs flailing uncontrollably as the magic engulfed her.

Bolin sprinted forward as the witch continued to writhe, and slid
on his knees to Nialyne's side.

"Goddess's light, no." He choked on the words, his hands shaking as he searched for a pulse. "Alyne, please."

Her eyes fluttered open, clear and focused. "Ciara needs you."

She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and whispered something in Galysian. Bolin jerked back, but her grip tightened. "By the Goddess, no. Alyne, please, don't do this.
Please."

But she only smiled, ignoring his plea. When she spoke, her voice came on shallow gusts of breath. "Let her in, Bolin. You need each other. You will find healing in one another's arms."

"Don't." The word tore from him on a sob.

"There is no other way."

"Goddess be damned if there's not. I won't let you do this." He tried again to break her hold on him even as his skin began to tingle under her touch, the power of the Greensward flowing from her. "You should have stayed behind, Alyne. Why didn't you listen to me? You would have been safe."

"And you would have died."

"Better me than you." His eyes widened, beseeching her. "I won't let you sacrifice yourself for me. It's not right."

"
It is a mother's right, and you have always been as a son to me. Take this as my gift." As the entirety of her magic flowed into him, the light in her eyes dimmed until at last it flickered and went out like the last desperate gasp of a candle.

The world dissolved around Bolin
as Nialyne's fingers slipped from his arm. Nothing existed in that moment. No heart beat beneath his hand on her breast. No breath moved across his cheek when he lowered his face to hers. Tears streamed unchecked down his cheeks as he gathered Nialyne into his lap, folding himself around her, his body shaking. He couldn't breathe; the effort to even try seemed beyond him.

He threw back his head and roared at the Goddess, a guttural sound of anguish and rage tearing from the depths of his soul. This couldn't be happening. He wouldn't accept it. How could the Goddess show such blatant disregard?

Someone laid a hand on his shoulder, and Bolin shrugged it off, collapsing himself around Nialyne. He prayed each breath that ripped from him would go to her, but she remained still in his embrace. Deep within Bolin, the gentle power of the Greensward pulsed with energy.

For a moment it seemed time ceased to exist. When Bolin finally
lifted his face to look down the length of the wall through blurred eyes, his grief hardened into something else. With immense care, he laid Nialyne down, folded her hands across her breast, and closed her eyes, placing a light kiss on each lid.

"Safe journey, Alyne," he whispered. "The Halls are brighter for your presence, even as our world has dimmed."

Bolin rose slowly to his feet. His lip curled as his eyes swept past the witch's twisted and misshapen remains and sought out Donovan. He started forward, but a hand on his arm stopped him. Bolin didn't turn.

"You had better see to the mages," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "If anyone stands in my way, I will kill them."

"Including me?"

He slid a dark gaze the Emperor's way. "Including you."

"So this is how you would honor Nialyne's gift?"

"No. This is how I will avenge her death."

"I won't allow you to--"

Bolin
whirled, and slammed Dain back against the wall, his arm across the Emperor's throat. "You can't stop me."

"Don't force me to try."

"He's winning." Bolin screamed the words as the dam holding his emotions back shattered. "Is that what you want? What did he promise you, Dain? How much did it take to buy your subservience? Did he say you'd get to keep your precious crown when he's finished with the rest of us?"

"Bolin." Ariadne's shout drew his gaze. She sat on the ground with Ciara's head cradled in her lap.

"See to the mages," he repeated, and forcibly released Dain. "Donovan is mine."

He approached Ariadne with slow, wooden steps.
Terror threatened to immobilize him. He would not survive if he lost Ciara as well.

"She's alive," Ariadne said.

Bolin sucked in a shaking breath, and wiped a hand across his mouth. He knelt beside Ciara. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even, a deep bruise forming across her cheek the only visible injury. He cupped her face gently and called her name.

Her eyes fluttered open, closed, opened again, wide and unfocused.

"You need to call him to you," Bolin said. "Now."

She shook her head and shrank back against Ariadne. "I can't. He's gone."

Bolin grabbed her upper arms and pulled her to her feet, holding her there. "I'll guide you." He shook her when her gaze drifted. "Listen to me, Donovan will have him otherwise. I can't let that happen. If you don't call Andrakaos to you, I'll have to. Do you understand me?"

Ariadne started to object but changed her mind when Bolin shot her a warning glare. Ciara's lashes drifted down.

"I will take him from you," Bolin said.

Her eyes shot open, and Bolin rocked back at the fury in them. Her body went rigid. "You said you would never do that."

"I will do what I need to protect the empire."

"No."

"Then you need to get control of him."

Bolin trembled as he turned Ciara around, holding her before him. He kept a firm hold on her arms, his mouth close to her ear. Somewhere high above them, Andrakaos soared through the sky beyond Nisair.

"Call him, and bind him."

"I can't."

"You can." A hint of desperation colored his voice. "You have no choice."

He began to whisper the ancient words to her, the ones she needed to call Andrakaos back to her. He cleared his mind of all else
, and focused only on Ciara. She repeated the words, her voice wavering. Bolin used every scrap of magic he could grab, fortified with the power of the Greensward, to give her strength and ward her against anyone else. Her voice grew stronger, and Andrakaos dropped lower over Nisair. Bolin saw him out of the corner of his eye, a great shadow almost on level with them. He redoubled his efforts, shielding and guiding Ciara until he could feel the power coursing through her, growing as she tossed fear and doubt aside.

"Now," he whispered.

Ciara stepped away from him just as someone shouted a warning. Searing hot pain lanced across Bolin's back and twisted him around. He got a glimpse of Dain facing off against one of the mage's before he lost his grip on the world around him.

***

Ciara whispered the words as Bolin gave them to her. His strength flowed around her, through his touch, through the power he drew to keep her safe. She could do this because she would never give in to Donovan and become what he wanted.

Andrakaos tipped his massive head and watched her, curiosity warring with anger. Ciara called on her earth magic, and his lips
rolled back from his teeth in a sneer until he realized she intended to remake the chain she had bound him with in Broadhead. But this time Ciara formed the delicate silver threads into strong links, each one a word of binding.

She had come to the realization that she and Bolin had been wrong all this time. Ciara had been terrified of losing herself to Andrakaos, when it was he who feared losing himself to her. But neither of them had to lose. He could have his freedom, could soar the skies and feel the wind in his wings. They could do so together.

You would have me bow to you?

"No," Ciara answered. "I would have you stand beside me."

And so you seek to chain me?

"Until you earn my trust."

He would not chain me.

An image of Donovan flashed in her mind. Ciara laughed, a harsh, cold sound. "No. He would enslave you. He would bend you to his will and never let you dance with the wind."

Then none shall have me.

"Wrong."

Ciara flipped her hand outward, and the chain spiraled through the air. Andrakaos roared as it settled around him. His huge wings fanned the air as he tried to escape. Ciara braced herself against his fury. Her arms spread to the sides, mimicking his position as his power flowed back to her down the links she had forged.