King's Folly (Book 2) (48 page)

She stopped at the remains of a human, and kicked what was left of his wrist. A charred knife fell from his brittle grasp and she picked the blade up, knocking it against the stone. The leather around the hilt fell off, but the blade was sound. She would have liked to wipe it clean, but there wasn’t any cloth left that she could see.

Moving in a dream, Isiilde wandered through the cavern, walking on a cloud of warm ash and smoldering coals. A gust of wind prickled her skin, reminding her of a world of waiting snow. And more men.

Her throat was raw from use. If she were to leave this place, she needed water, food, and clothing.

Distant thunder filled her ears. The roar came from a side passage, carved with writhing forms of pain and pleasure. Averting her gaze from the gruesome images, she walked towards the sound, aware of the blade pressed in her hand.

Mist tickled her throat, and the thunder drowned the blood rushing through her veins. Her fire had not touched this stone. It opened to a cave of luminous vines and a waterfall plunging into darkness. Water drained into a shallow side basin. The pool was not empty. A pale girl floated in the water, ankles and wrists bound with chains, stretched to the four corners of the pool. Her skin glistened, her eyes were as white as her hair, unseeing but moving.

The nymph pressed herself against the stone, clutching her dagger with horror. The girl’s lips moved, murmuring in a foreign tongue. Her body arched, her jaw cracked opened, and she spat out words. The water began to churn. Isiilde edged forward, gazing at its surface.

Shadows moved in the ripples, taking shape with each raving word. The girl began to foam at the mouth, tugging, ripping at her chains, but she was bound tightly, spread-eagle and helpless.

Isiilde saw herself in the pool’s reflection, but it was not her present self. This reflection was crouched at the edge of the pool. A shadow detached itself from the wall, stepped behind her, and drew a claw across her throat. The nymph gasped in fear, screaming hoarsely, but her fire was too far, and the air too moist. She twisted in time to see N’Jalss’ swift strike.

Isiilde threw up her arms. Claws bit into flesh, her armor weave flared, searing the already wounded Rahuatl but going no farther. The clash sent her reeling, and she slipped on the slick stone, falling into water. Without a sound, the Rahuatl stepped into the pool and grabbed the nymph by her hair. Isiilde twisted in his grip, striking with her knife. Her blade pierced the meat of his forearm, and he released her. She dropped into the water, scrambled under the thrashing, screaming girl, and came up on the other side, weaving.

Defenseless without his voice, N’Jalss launched himself at the nymph. Her weave slammed into the Rahuatl as he tackled her. White hot pain slashed through her bones as energy crackled between the two, hurling them apart.

Isiilde’s head felt cracked, her heart skipped and started, she could not draw breath. And an eternity later, air came, cool and sweet. Spots danced in her vision. Her hand felt moist air and nothingness. Instinct propelled her into a roll, away from the gaping crevice and falls.

The girl was thrashing, the pool churned, and N’Jalss fell on the nymph with strong hands and piercing claws. Her armor weave deflected and sizzled, but the claws found her flesh. And she found her knife, driving the blade into N’Jalss’ side. It slipped between his ribs.

The Rahuatl’s grip tightened for a moment and then weakened. Isiilde drove her foot into his knee, and pushed off, scrambling up and out of the pool. N’Jalss pressed a hand to his side, around the blade, his eyes gleamed, and blood bubbled from his lips with every wheeze. With a shuddering exhale, he fell forward, floating beside the chained girl.

Isiilde shuddered, crawling onto hands and knees, willing her legs to stand. Her eyes fell on the blossoming cloud of blood billowing in the waters. She saw herself in its crimson reflection, lying limply at the edge of the pool—bruised, swollen, and bleeding. She blinked, and her arms gave out, head lolling over the stony edge. In the water’s reflection, she saw a snowy owl. A moment later, a familiar sun flared to life in her breast.

SNOW
BLANKETED
THE
mountains and ice formed daggers on the fortress walls. An owl glided over frozen stone, battered by harsh winds and sleet. It swooped closer, riding a current towards the mountain’s face.

The sun was falling; yet, the walls were empty of guards and the braziers unlit. The owl landed on a twisted altar at the top of a steep stairway cut into the mountain. Its head swiveled, surveying the fortress. Snow-covered lumps littered the ground and threat lingered in the air, tickling the owl’s senses.

It ruffled its feathers, settled, and stepped to the side, away from the pouch it had carried for miles. The coins around its neck clinked and chimed, reminding the owl that he was a man. The spark took root, the weave unraveled, and the owl jerked and spasmed. Snowy feathers swirled in the wind, leaving a thin, shivering man laying on the altar.

Marsais rolled off with a groan. His feet hit ice and ash, and he slipped, catching himself on the sacrificial stone. With trembling limbs and a spinning head, he grabbed the pouch, and staggered away. Pain split his skull, rippling through his bones, but it was not his own. He clenched his jaw, bracing himself.

The entrance into the Ardmoor’s temple gaped like a maw of icy fangs. He staggered beneath the arch, into a scorched throat that had recently bellowed flame.

The crazed, mad carvings of the Ardmoor roiled and moved beneath his eye, transforming stone into a writhing mass of snake-like carvings. Drugged and hallucinating, the images would drive any man insane. Marsais, however, was not drugged, and he was already mad, so he moved forward without hesitation, coins chiming gently against his throat.

Isiilde was in pain, but alive. And strangely unafraid. Grey eyes scanned the cavern, the ash and death and destruction. The carnage gave him pause. He stopped beside a giant phallic shaped pillar, reached into his pouch, and yanked out his trousers, tugging them on. Moving swiftly, he cinched the pouch around his waist, and followed the tug of their bond to his nymph.

An entire tribe littered the floor. He skirted their burnt corpses on silent feet, hands ready to weave. But no one was left, not a soul stirred. Marsais’ gut clenched with dread. The path was set, and the seer did not like the looming end.

He pushed the future aside and focused on the present—his nymph, who was no longer the innocent. Their bond led him to a tunnel, past a ritual pit and corrals, where captive men, women, and children had been cooked alive in their cages.

A misty roar drew him deeper into the cave. Marsais stretched his legs, moving swiftly through the tunnel. Isiilde was there, laying naked beside a pool, fiery hair mixing with the cloud of blood and the body of N’Jalss. He did not look at the child chained in the water. The scryer screamed her visions in a hoarse, battered tongue, and he closed his ears to her prophesies with a shudder, circling the pool, careful not to touch the water.

Isiilde was alive, he knew, but she was bleeding from numerous wounds. Gently, he lifted her head from the water, turned her over in his arms, and cradled her to his chest, smoothing back clinging hair. Emerald eyes fluttered open at his touch.

“My sun,” she smiled.

A knot unwound in his heart. There was hope.

“I feel I should say something in return, but words fail me at the moment.”

“You
are
saying something, Marsais.” Her voice was thready and weak.

“It’s not a very good something,” he pressed his lips against her forehead, whispering his love on her skin.

“I thought you were dead,” she breathed. “Oenghus?”

Marsais pulled away, meeting her gaze. “We need to leave.”

“Tell me,” she demanded, struggling to rise.

“He fell off the edge—into the mists.”

The nymph closed her eyes. A tear slipped down her cheek, trailing through blood and ash. He felt her heart fall with her guardian, but the girl’s thrashing in the water brought them back to the present. Isiilde clenched her jaw, and pushed herself to her knees, shoving N’Jalss aside to reach the tortured girl.

“We must help her.”

Marsais averted his eyes. “Yes.”

“I saw visions in the water, Marsais.”

“The girl is a scryer. The Ardmoor have been using her to track us.”

“Help me get her binds off.”

“There are clothes inside this pouch. Wait for me in the tunnel.”

“Why?”

The girl thrashed, moaned, and the water churned. The nymph looked into the bloody swirl. Emerald eyes widened in horror.

“You can’t. We can save her.”

“
Go
!”

Isiilde blinked at the harsh order. She stared at him, stunned and appalled, and for a hearbeat, she saw what others saw—why they feared him. But she was not afraid. In that moment, they were equals.

“It is a mercy, Isiilde,” Marsais closed his eyes. “As one who was collared and chained for years, by the gods, you must believe me.”

His hoarse confession cooled her skin. He could not meet her eyes, could not bear her pity. Marsais thrust out the pouch. “Wait for me, please.”

The nymph staggered out of the pool, retrieved the pouch in silence, and limped into the tunnel, leaving the seer with his tortured kin. Marsais turned to the girl and looked at her then. Numb fingers curled around a knife on the ground, and he stood, wading into the water. He touched her wrist, uttering the Lore of Unlocking, and then the other, moving to her ankles until she floated free.

“Grant me peace,” she exhaled.

“May your spirit drift free for eternity.” Marsais slipped a hand behind her head, exposing a pale throat. “Be at peace, child.”

The blade bit flesh in one clean jerk, unburdening her from Time.

❧

The two travelers trudged through the snow in silence. Marsais puffed in the cold, plowing through thick drifts as his nymph staggered on his heels. She was injured, but not all the Ardmoor had been killed. Eventually, the warriors would return, braving the fire drake in their lair. But most of all, more than any threat, neither Marsais nor Isiilde wished to remain in the fortress a moment longer.

Isiilde stumbled, and he turned, catching her, helping her onto his back. She was so delicate, so frail, and yet so powerful. As light and fierce as flame, he thought. Pulling his cowl lower, Marsais put his head down, and walked as far as his long legs would take him from the chained girl.

❧

The temperature dropped with the sun, giving birth to the Hunter’s moon and a silver crescent in the stars. In the light of the red moon, Marsais walked down the mountainside and into a valley. The frozen wall of the Ardmoor’s fortress disappeared, and he took refuge in an ancient forest, stopping at the first sentinel. The seer readjusted the nymph on his back, and pressed his hand against a twisted trunk, marred by wind and axe and scarred by flame. The sequoia’s branches swayed, its needles shivered, and the wind moaned in greeting.

“We need shelter, old ones,” Marsais beseeched. A gust of wind caught his breath, chilling his bones, and he stepped into the forest, coins chiming, announcing his presence like a herald. The trees whispered in answer, and he followed their quivering needles.

The wood spirits led him to a shadow within the darkness. Fingers flashed, and a blue orb swirled by his shoulder. With a word, he sent the orb of light darting towards the shape, illuminating a cabin buried in snow drifts.

“Isiilde,” he whispered.

The nymph stirred at his call, and opened her eyes. Without urging, she slid from his back, and he steadied her until she found her feet. They moved towards the cabin, climbing a snow drift. Marsais kicked in a shutter and sent his orb twirling inside, until every crevice was filled with light.

The cabin was abandoned.

Marsais folded his long body through the window, turned to help Isiilde down, and moved to the large, river rock hearth, brushing off the snow and cleaning it of debris. He traced a fire rune on the back wall, and reached into the pouch, pulling out blankets. Isiilde limped over, lowering herself on the furs.

They ate in silence, in the glow of heat, and when their bellies were full, Marsais rummaged through their supplies. Isiilde watched him as he added yarrow leaves and honey to a small bowl, crushing and grinding the leaves into a poultice.

“I only risk a healing in the most dire of circumstances,” he said, breaking their silence. “Madness is not conducive to healing.”

Isiilde unlaced her jerkin, peeled it off, and pulled her shirt over her head. She moved in a daze, not even flinching when cold air brushed her shoulders. Marsais eyed the bruises on her neck and breasts. She yanked off her boots, shimmied out of her trousers and underclothes, and sat on the fur, wrapped in a blanket, eyes turned towards the glowing fire rune.

“How long did you wear a collar?” she asked, softly.

“Long enough to stop counting.”

A shudder swept through the nymph’s body. He gathered clean snow from a corner into a bowl, and knelt beside her when he returned, warming the water with a delicate weave. When she did not accept the offered cloth, Marsais dipped it in water, wringing it out before washing the filth from her body. Bruises blossomed over her bones from the lightning’s charge and gashes marred her ethereal flesh. After she was clean and dry, he reached for the poultice.

“I killed them, Marsais.”

He paused at her whisper.

“You were taken captive,” he said. “You did what was needed to survive.”

But she was shaking her head.

“The Lome. I killed so many trying to help Oen.” Her voice cracked, and tears slipped from her eyes unbidden. Marsais cupped her face, brushing away tears with gentle fingers, but she shook off his soothing touch, sitting upright.

She looked at him then. “But you knew, didn’t you? You knew a scryer was tracking us. You
knew
the Ardmoor would attack—that is why you waited.” The accusations rang in her voice, and he did not deny a word. “We could have left, Marsais. We could have ran and left them in peace.”