The Dark Throne (44 page)

“Tess?” Calliea’s hands were on my shoulders; she hissed as another surge of power ripped through me, knocking the breath from me as surely as a punch to the gut. I heard her call out in a commanding voice. “Finnead! Luca! Something’s happening!”

Clenching my jaw, I caught hold of the Sword’s power with my own
taebramh
. The Caedbranr had been
startled
awake, I thought grimly, and it dug its claws into me like a surprised cat—though that analogy was about as accurate as comparing Beryk to a golden retriever. The rattling on my back only increased in tempo. Breathing hard, I pushed down the pain enough to straighten, reaching over my shoulder to grip the hilt of the Sword, quieting the loud rattle. The scars on my palms burned as the Sword’s vibrations traveled through my hand, up my arm, into my bones.

“What is it?” I gritted out. I didn’t have the composure to speak to the Sword silently. It was all I could do to keep its whirling fire contained within me. The Caedbranr didn’t answer. Peripherally, I noticed that Calliea had tactfully moved a small distance away from me. White fire blurred the edges of my vision. I tightened my grip on the hilt of the Sword as I tightened my grip on its power within me. A small bright object shot past me. I heard Calliea swear profusely.

Sweat broke out on my forehead and I shivered, not sure whether I was hot or cold, my body still damp from the skirmish. Then the waves of nausea hit me, one after another, until I doubled over and retched, losing my grip on the Sword and almost losing my control over its power. The white fire pulsed in my eyes, becoming all I could see for an instant as I spat into the gray dust on my hands and knees, my entire body trembling with the force of the power rolling through me. I summoned what strength I had left and clamped down on the Caedbranr.

“Tell me what’s happening,” I panted, my fingers digging into the dirt. Through my hands, I felt a slight tremor. I blinked, but then my eyes widened as it came again. I hadn’t imagined it. The ground was beginning to shake.

The Sword finally answered me. Its words came as close to a cry as I’d ever heard in its stoic, androgynous voice.

The earth bleeds.

“The earth bleeds,” I repeated in a hoarse voice.

“Tess!” Calliea grabbed my arm and levered me upright, almost bodily carrying me as she started at a near-run back toward camp. I couldn’t see clearly enough to understand what was happening, but I could feel the tremors in the earth becoming stronger.

“The earth bleeds,” I said again dazedly.

“That’s one way to put it,” Calliea said with a grunt, her voice tight with discomfort. “Help me out, Tess.”

I concentrated on using my feet to carry my weight, but then my grip on the Caedbranr’s power slipped and Calliea gave a little sound of pain, so I decided to focus on compressing the Sword’s fire, keeping it in its space between my ribs. I turned my head to find Elwyn and Niamh next to us, Finnead held up between them. His ocean-deep eyes stared into nothing and the color drained from his face, his lips tinged blue. I didn’t have the breath to call out to him. I heard Luca roaring orders behind us to the rest of the vanguards and Valkyrie.

The earth bucked beneath our feet. Calliea navigated the rolling ground adroitly, pulling me along with her; Elwyn and Niamh almost fell with Finnead, but they recovered. We ran through camp—or rather, Calliea dragged me. A violent tremor shook the ground as we fell through the entrance to the Queen’s tent. Calliea released me, rushing forward. Through my hazy vision I saw Vell on the ground, writhing as the tent swayed with the earthquake. Gray clasped one of Vell’s hands in a white-knuckled grip, her teeth bared in a grimace of pain. Arcana knelt by Vell’s head, her child-small hands hovering near the High Queen’s temples. Finnead knelt by Vell’s other side, taking her other hand in his own.

A ragged cry escaped me as agony sliced into my chest. Vell’s body created an impossible arc, lifted from the ground by the force of this alien pain. We couldn’t fight it. It wasn’t a physical enemy. Hot tears of helpless anger trickled down my cheeks. Merrick was suddenly beside me, supporting me wordlessly. It felt as though the ground was going to split beneath us, swallowing us whole. I tried to say Merrick’s name but choked on the sound as another wave of agony crashed over me; he held me as I shuddered and gasped, my hands clenching his shirt. Dust rose from the ground in clouds and the huge, solid table danced along the floor—it felt as though we were on a ship tossed in a storm, the ground beneath us changing direction with the whims of a raging sea. I lost all sense of myself, struggling to keep the emerald fire of the Caedbranr and my own
taebramh
from shattering me, riding the strange swells of nausea with grim focus, gulping down air between the vibrating pulses of alien power. After a few long moments, I finally felt a release in the pressure of the Sword’s
taebramh
against my breastbone. The Caedbranr remembered itself, and with a gentleness it had never before offered me, it slid its power like cool water into my aching bones, weaving a protection around me until I finally caught my breath, the pain now manageable.

I didn’t know whether it had been minutes or hours since the earthquake had begun; time seemed to flex along with the ground, settling reluctantly back into its linear progression. Finally I was able to think beyond my next breath. I swallowed hard and found my face pressed against Merrick’s chest, my cheeks wet with tears; one of his arms encircled my shoulders in a firm grip, and his other hand cupped the back of my head. As he felt me stir, he cautiously released his hold, letting me sit back on my heels. I blinked shadows away from my vision, taking a slow, shuddering breath. When my sight returned, I saw Merrick gazing at me with concern, his gray eyes wide.

I put one hand on the ground to keep my balance as I coughed and finally caught my breath again. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed Merrick’s shirt, torn in more than one place from my convulsive grip. I touched a rip by his shoulder, grimacing. “Sorry,” I rasped.

He caught my elbow as I tried to stand. “Vell.” My voice came out a croak. I managed to grab the edge of the still-upright table and lever myself to my feet. Second time in as many days that I’d had to scrape myself off the ground by this table, I thought in irritation. The Sword sent a bit of that lovely cooling power to my throat. I took a breath and savored it.

Sometimes we forget you are a very young Bearer
.

It wasn’t the Sword speaking; it was the layered voices of the Bearers who had gone before me. I could hear Gwyneth’s voice at the forefront. My free hand unconsciously touched the circular pendant at my throat. Goosebumps raced down my arms. It had been a long time since I’d heard the voices of Bearers past.

Vell sat with her knees drawn up before her, and her head resting on her knees. She looked young, too, in that moment, even with the glimmer of the circlet in her dark hair. Finnead and Gray knelt on either side of their Queen, and Arcana had faded back into the shadows. Finnead looked up, relief written across his face as he saw me standing by the table. I raised my eyebrows in silent query and he nodded. We were all shaken, but whole.

What just happened?
I asked the Bearers silently, hoping that they hadn’t retreated into the depths of the Sword again. For a long moment, I thought that they’d gone, leaving me with the stoic voice of the Caedbranr. But then the chorus of women spoke again, their voices tender, as though they were speaking to a daughter or a beloved sister.

The veil was torn, and creatures of darkness slipped through. An exchange of sorts.

Slipped through into
where
? An exchange of
what? I thought in sudden panic. Had Malravenar found some other dark world rife with twisted creatures, an army ripe for his harvesting? The image of the Dark forces marching under their bloodstained banners and skulls rose in my mind’s eye.

Into
your
world, dearheart,
said Gwyneth and the other Bearers, almost gently.

For a strange moment, vertigo took hold.
This is my world
, I thought disjointedly, clutching at the table, my breath catching in my throat as a barrage of memories flooded into my head, reminding me forcefully that this had not always been my world, that once I had been a little girl in pigtails, with an older brother who played baseball with our dad in the yard, and a mom who hung our laundry out on a clothesline to dry in the summer sun. The impossible normalcy and innocence of the memory overwhelmed me, striking deeper than the pain of the alien power. The smoldering wreckage of my childhood home rose as the next image—I’d seen it in the ether, Walking. Shivers wracked me as I suddenly questioned if that had been a warning. A portent. My chest ached and I swallowed hard against the urge to be sick again.

“Tess?” Merrick still held my arm, watching me closely. I shook my head wordlessly, gathering myself for another question. I had to find out as much as I could from the women who had borne this weapon before me.

How many, and where?
I asked, envisioning a pack of
garrelnost
ripping through Times Square, the neon lights lurid on their mottled fur, screams rising against the skyscrapers. Helplessness rose up within me like bile. What was the use of wielding this power if I couldn’t
do
anything?

Steady
, said the voices of the Bearers, though it sounded almost entirely like Gwyneth now.
Do not let this cloud your mind. Only a handful of creatures forced their way through the veil.
Gwyneth paused. I gripped the table with white knuckles, waiting. Her voice began to fade and she spoke quickly.
It was not only Dark creatures that traveled through the veil into your world.
Another pause. Echoes, as if she was speaking from an ever-increasing distance.
Find them, Tess.

“Find
who
?” I cried out. Merrick tightened his grip on my arm, sharing a quick look with Finnead.

Gwyneth didn’t answer me with words; but moving under a will not my own, my fingers dipped into my belt-pouch, brushed aside the smooth weight of the river stones, and closed on that rough piece of dusty fabric that I’d carried with me since Luca had pressed it into my hand. For the second time I opened my fingers to reveal my brother’s nametape, but this time my hand trembled as I realized breathlessly that Liam was in Faeortalam, and I had to find him before Malravenar did.

Chapter 23

I
stood staring at my brother’s faded, dusty nametape for a few long moments, brushing my fingertips over the raised embroidery of our last name, the dark spots of old blood stiff beneath my touch. The Caedbranr stirred, nudging me almost gently.

“Thank you,” I whispered to the Sword. Its protection had helped me regain my head in time to understand Gwyneth’s warning. And I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d have been able to endure the bone-breaking pain for much longer with my sanity intact.

You can endure much more than you think
, the Caedbranr replied to my last thought.

I swallowed against the sourness in the back of my throat.
I know. It doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the help sometimes.

You are the Bearer,
the Sword replied simply, and fell silent.

“Tess?” Merrick touched my elbow again tentatively.

I blinked and turned to face the navigator. Calliea stood just behind him, observing with wary eyes. “Thanks. To both of you.”

“When one of the Queen’s Three and the Bearer both go down in tremors and the earth starts shaking, it’s not hard to know that something bad is happening,” Calliea said with an arched eyebrow.

I glanced over at Vell. She faced away from me, speaking quietly with Finnead and Gray. “Well, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t comfortable dragging us here. Where are Elwyn and Niamh?”

Calliea gestured to the front of the tent. “They’re standing guard outside. As you said, it was a bit…uncomfortable…being close to you.”

“But I didn’t hurt you?” I asked as I glimpsed a patch of dark blood on the wrist of Calliea’s shirt. She followed my gaze and grimaced, showing me that she’d pulled her shirt over the heel of her hand to dab at her bleeding nose.

“Just a bit of a reaction to the Sword’s power, I think,” she said with a dismissive flick of her wrist.

“Merrick?” I narrowed my eyes at the young navigator, trying to spot any injury. He put up his hands with a smile.

“I didn’t bear the brunt of it. By the time Calliea carried you in here, you had it mostly under control. Plus,” he added with a wry smile, “I think I’m a bit more conditioned to it.” His eyes darkened. “What did it tell you?”

I raised my eyebrows. “You can even tell when I’m talking to the Caedbranr?”

“Your eyes go distant. You’re listening hard, but not to anything we can hear.”

I blew out a slow breath. Should I tell them all about Liam? Would it be simpler if I just went on my own to find my brother? Could I ask them to help me on a perilous search for one I loved, especially in the middle of this war? I didn’t even know if I’d be able to leave and forsake my duty to find Liam. And just as all of those questions whirled in my head, they were all answered by the calm, steady words that Merrick spoke next.

“Whatever it is, Tess, we are all here to fight with you,” he said, his youthful face solemn. Calliea nodded behind him. Her eyes darted to the nametape in my hand. I followed Calliea’s eyes to Liam’s nametape and took a deep breath.

“I think there are a few more mortals in Faeortalam now.”

Calliea stared at me; Merrick looked sharply over at Finnead, who nodded solemnly in signal that he had heard my statement. I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my throat and closed my fingers around the dusty strip of cloth, slipping it back into the pouch on my belt.

“How do you know?” Calliea asked quietly, her eyes gleaming with focus.

“The Bearers that have gone before me…sometimes they speak to me through the Sword,” I replied. After the chaos of the earthquake, the silence pressing down around me seemed amplified and foreign, like the calm after a storm. “And they said that an exchange of sorts just occurred.”