Eversworn: Daughters of Askara, Book 3 (26 page)

Open desert forged its own rules. You learned them or it taught you a fatal lesson.

I swatted a fly from my ear and wrinkled my nose. Judging by the stench, someone had been educated here recently. Another landed, buzzing with excitement at finding an unexpected feast.

Dillon’s steps slowed. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes.” Exhaustion was setting in, the same as it had when I lost the mare in the first place. Already my thoughts churned sluggish and my limbs quaked with desire to lie in the warm sand. “It’s the book.” Words sat heavier on my tongue than usual. “Siphoning energy. Trying to sate.”

I shook my head, but the jumbled sentences bounced around without ever reforming.

“M’tired.” Dillon’s injured leg buckled. He hit the dirt and toppled me alongside him.

His eyes fluttered a moment, then calmed. Air whispered from between his lips.

“Dillon?” I shook his shoulder.

He rolled toward my voice. Instead of scooping me against him, his hand fell limp to his side. I shook him again, harder this time. He gave a sleepy smile and mumbled sweet-sounding nonsense before falling back to sleep. Huffs of his breath stirred sand beneath him less and less.

Shaking him a third time proved fruitless. My fingers had lost most of their grip and slid off his shirt as if I’d meant to dust lint from his pocket rather than grab him and shake him. No part of my body obeyed even the simplest commands. I was relaxing into the spell slower, but easily.

Slumped onto the side where I’d landed, I rolled onto my stomach. Lethargy weighted my arm, but I found my pocket after several tries. When my fingers bumped glass, awareness sizzled beneath my skin. On its heels, panic flared. Dillon lay so still and his breath moved no sand now.

Grasping the vial, I winced as heat worked through my tired limbs. I shoved upright and stared as blood swirled in a magical suspension. My mind tumbled through weak excuses as to how this was a bad idea that would be made worse, but I crushed its complaint and unscrewed the lid. A whiff of the vial’s contents made gooseflesh rise, but survival dipped my finger and I inked protective runes.

Acid burned my skin, and a moment passed where I was sure Aldrich’s magic would flay the flesh from my bones. Twisting the cap into place, I let the razor pain slice through my arm, burn through my shoulder into my chest, carving out a part of me agreeing I should lie down and die.

Struggling to my feet, I had a choice to make. Either I dragged Dillon to the cart, if I could, and risked burning the boost Aldrich’s blood had temporarily given me, or I left him here while I confronted the book. Considering neither was any real option, I checked his pulse and decided I would go on alone. It was, after all, my grimoire and my fault it was unleashed in the first place.

Leaving Dillon crumpled on the sand ate at me from the moment my back turned on him.

I had no choice. Use too much of Aldrich’s blood and the grimoire’s binding would fail.

Now that I knew the book’s location, I had a responsibility to contain it before someone was hurt. Almost on cue, the breeze rustled my hair in an insidious reminder someone most assuredly was already. The stink of death and magic filled my nostrils and steadied the racing of my heart.

The grimoire was close.

Cresting a small hill dappled with clumps of dying grass, I rubbed my eyes and wondered if I was seeing a mirage. Straining my eyes didn’t alter my view one bit. The mare stood grazing several yards from me. No one appeared to have tampered with her saddle or my bags. Her reins dragged the ground between her forefeet. Untied, untouched and unconcerned, she continued her munch-step-munch pattern while my sense of unease made me eager to retreat behind the dune.

Dread pounded a staccato beat in time with my steps as I began my roundabout approach of the mare. Pulsing magic washed over my skin, tasting yet again. The grimoire may have noticed me, but the mare was oblivious. If she ran, I’d be out of time to capture her and reach Sere.

So I approached slowly, circling wide so she would see me coming.

As my perspective shifted, I located the source of the stench and retched loud enough for the mare to lift her head and prick her ears in my direction. While she returned to lipping grass, I did my best not to stare at the ramshackle series of hitching posts. Or the camels collapsed at their bases. Dry desert air hindered decomposition, and the bodies could only be a matter of days old.

How was she unaffected? Unless the book realized she was its only means of transportation?

Moving faster now that the mare was aware of me, I was reminded of what Mother had once said about death magic having its own scent. It was a footnote in my education, and this was my first time experiencing it. Our temple practiced white magic, but black magic was gossip fodder.

While part of me pointed out the grimoire only knew what we had written onto its pages, its use of a spell not in my repertoire, one my mother should have had no knowledge of, chilled me.

Or at least it did until I pondered applications for such a spell…and its price.

A wary snort dragged my focus back to the mare. She watched me stumble, ears swiveling.

I held still long enough for her to dismiss me. Then I resumed inching closer.

The grimoire’s spell licked over me, sampling my altered energy until my legs trembled. Tasting Aldrich’s power excited it. Even the mare twitched her skin as if dislodging biting flies.

A sharp smile cut my mouth as I began murmuring the binding spell.

The grimoire’s hunger slammed into me once I finished reciting the first verse. Its curiosity was overcome by survival instinct. Pulsing teeth spiked with energy sank in my essence and tore.

I screamed.

Clutching my chest, I willed myself another step closer. I owed a hefty sum for the purchase of the wind spell I’d lifted from its pages. Energy loaned to me during my escape, well, I owed it for that too, but not this. Not the days it spent exhausting all its reserves in search of fresh prey.

Debt piled up to my eyeballs. After its taste of freedom, its massive expenditure of energy, I knew the grimoire would scoff at my customary blood offering. Depleted as it must be, it would crave sacrifice, ache to glut on some poor demon’s energy as his life extinguished. Only I saw no demons here. The residents must have escaped after their livestock fell ill. No doubt rumors of an oasis plague were circulating in nearby cities as I stood here, debating the safest course of action.

“Isabeau.”

My head snapped up and my gaze scanned the path behind me. Dillon was crawling toward me, toward the book. Teeth that had been content gnawing at me sensed him and retracted. An instant later, I heard his grunt of pain, saw him fall to his side and sensed his gaze as he reached for me.

While the book toyed with its latest catch, I eased close enough to the mare I could toe the reins from their coil on the ground to me. Before I bent, she shied and danced left. I stomped on the lead and held her in place long enough to wrap the leather strap around my hand. I threw my weight into restraining her as I reached her side and tore at the buckles and the straps holding her saddle in place. When the saddle and bags hit the ground, I worked her bridle and freed her head.

A toss of her mane and she was gone. Thank the goddess that was done.

Dropping to my knees, I emptied the bags until the grimoire tumbled onto the sand. Vial in hand, I smeared runes across the cover and all but screamed the binding spell. Seconds passed. A minute stretched into infinity. Nothing happened. I chanted the spell a second time, then a third as I clutched the vial, hoping I’d used enough of Aldrich’s blood but afraid of wasting my best weapon. A furious roar rattled my ears as tendrils of its energy were sucked back into the book.

It bucked across the ground, reminding me of an animal writhing in its death throes.

Weak as a newborn babe, I watched its final struggle and blessed its eventual containment. I cringed when energy seeped from its cover onto the sand. Close as I sat, as tired as I was, I could only sit as its stolen harvest seeped into me, chilling me as I shut my eyes and saw those camels.

Yes, death magic had a scent. Now I knew it had a taste. I sickened as my power swelled.

I made it to my knees, pocketing the vial before I dry-heaved.

“Shh.” Hands stroked down my spine as I purged mouthfuls of foul breath. “I’ve got you.”

After wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I slumped against Dillon.

We collapsed in a pile of sickly limbs and waited for Lindsay.

Or so I told myself before my eyes rolled shut.

Sharp jabs in the ribs woke Dillon. His side protested the rough treatment, a ripe curse rising on his lips, until he cracked open an eye and remembered where he was and what had happened. Rolling onto his back, he stared up at Lindsay outlined by blue sky. She kicked him again before he blocked her foot, snagged her ankle and twisted. The halfling hit the ground.

“Where is she?” he growled.

Scuttling out of his reach, Lindsay wheezed. “She’s checking for survivors.”

He sat upright and squinted toward the ramshackle shelters dotting the edge of the oasis waterhole. “She shouldn’t have gone alone.” His weight settled heavy on his left when he stood.

Narrowing her eyes, Lindsay rose. “I checked first. I wouldn’t have let her go otherwise.”

If she was going to make him ask, fine. “And?”

“No dead demons, only dead livestock. Camels and a couple of chickens. A few are alive, but most not. No signs of their owners. Of anyone.” She shrugged. “It could have been worse.”

“Much worse,” he agreed. This tiny watering hole couldn’t sustain permanent residents, so it was used as a pit stop between Feriana and Duchai. Most likely, when the animals got sick and the demons did too, the merchants abandoned the weakest of their lots and evacuated in a hurry.

“We should get moving before someone finds us here.” She gestured. “With all this.”

Bone-tired as he was, Dillon knew she was right. Time was wasting. Sere was still a ways to go, and they had plans to make. Rolling his shoulders, he started walking. “I’ll go fetch Isabeau.”

“I’ll load the cart.” Her chin indicated the saddlebags. “The salt’s there, if you’re curious.”

Dillon slowed. Salt was the last thing on his mind. Isabeau was the first, her daughter second and surviving this clusterfuck a distant third. Lifting a tired hand in thanks, he made his way past the murky pond serving as the oasis’s water source toward the row of dilapidated lean-tos. Faded canvas hung in weathered swaths, failing to offer any privacy to the sometimes-occupants but would have made Lindsay’s, and now his, search for survivors easy as skimming down the line.

“Hey,” he said, once he got within hearing range of Isabeau.

Her back faced him, her shoulders straight, sight fixed somewhere off in the distance.

“Isabeau?” Dried blood coated her arms and speckled her clothes. “You all right?” Still no answer. Wheeling her to face him, he asked, “Anyone home inside that beautiful head of yours?”

“I’m sorry.” She blinked several times. “I didn’t hear you.”

“It’s fine.” Her token protest was ignored as he hugged her. “What are you thinking about?”

“Lots of things.” Her voice was muffled against his chest.

He nuzzled her throat. “Like?”

“How irresponsible it was of me to use magic beyond my control. How these deaths are my fault. How much worse this situation would have been if instead of this oasis, the mare had returned to the colony or run into the nearest city. And I’m not done yet.” She said, “Far from it.”

“No.” He held her tighter. “
We
aren’t done yet.”

Her fingers tightened in his shirt. She didn’t speak, didn’t have to. He knew she would try to shoulder the blame when this was over, but his hands were just as dirty as hers. Somewhere along the way, he’d realized there was more to life than his job. That losing that job might have been a gift instead of a curse. After all, Harper was mated now. He wasn’t the guy he used to be, and Dillon was glad for it, for him. Emma was healing him. Together, they were whole, and thank God for it.

“I regret…”

Dillon pressed a finger to her lips, cutting off Isabeau’s response. “Sweetheart, we all have regrets. I know I do.” He sighed. “When this is over, then we’ll talk. There are going to be heavy consequences for what you’ve done. For what I’m helping you do. We’re in this together, right?”

Her face rubbed against him in a nod.

Isabeau was in this up to her pretty little neck, but damn if he’d let her get hurt more than she had been. Breathing in the scent of his mate, Dillon cast aside his doubts. She was worth this.

Harper more than earned his slice of peace, no doubt. But didn’t Dillon deserve the same? Maybe the best way to vanquish the ghosts of his past was to embrace a future so bright it blazed through his tormented dreams. If so, Isabeau was the key to locking his worst nightmares at bay.

If that meant giving up friendships and the colony to protect her, he’d do it. For their family.

Chapter Seventeen

Sere loomed ahead, its boundaries an invisible line crisscrossing Askaran sands.