The Hollow Crown: A Novel of Crosspointe (33 page)

Inside himself, Keros felt the stir of the presence waking. Or rather, it no longer felt separate. In the last days it had melded with him somehow. It felt like an extra limb, or a new sense. It stretched and he felt
more
somehow. Everything was cast into sharper relief. It felt entirely natural—a gift of the gods rather than an invader. He drew a breath and let it out slowly. He hoped it was a gift. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He turned his attention back to the scene before him.

Cracks of light gleamed from the two poles. They traced the rivulets of Margaret’s blood as it trickled from her hands. The Jutras sped his dance and now he began to spiral through the spell. The edges rose up as he passed. When he reached the middle, he’d complete the sacrifice. Keros was certain of it. He was out of time.

He reached for his majick. It was thick and syrupy and did not want to answer him. He hauled with all his might. There was no time for finesse. He needed to smash the Jutras and his spell with brute strength. Caught in the middle of the shattered spell, the priest would not be able to defend himself.

Taking a breath, Keros stepped into the red mist.

It closed around him like a swarm of stinging wasps. He shuddered from the sudden sweep of poison pain and pushed forward. The air was dense and fibrous, resisting him. He swung his arms and shoved into it like it was a hard wind. Step by step he closed the distance.

The sound of the Jutras priest’s chanting grew louder. It vibrated through Keros’s bones. He shook his head. The words felt familiar somehow. They glided over him like petting hands, trailing a biting mixture of venom and pleasure. The sensation spread, sinking down through his skin to his muscles and bones. He trembled, caught between ecstasy and anguish. He closed his eyes, swallowing hard.

When he opened them, he found himself inside a dancing ethereal world of shining stars. They spun around him, each pulsing and twinkling with rainbow colors. Entranced, he reached out a hand and caught one. It flared inside his fist and when he opened his hand, he found that it had sunk into his palm. His hand glowed red. A moment later yellow light veined through the red. It flowed over his hand like a net of roots, then spread up his arm. He felt it sinking inside him, digging deep into places he hadn’t known existed. It didn’t hurt. Quite the opposite. It burned with a pleasure so intense that it nearly dropped him to his knees. He felt a welcoming inside him as if two halves of a whole came together, even as something else inside him clawed back with painful fury. A fullness swelled inside him, then drew into a tight hard ball. He gasped and struggled for breath, unable to move, every part of himself pulling taut until he thought he would snap apart. Grains drifted past. His heart ached and blood thundered in his ears.

Then suddenly, there was a
give
. Slowly the hard knot released. No. It blossomed. He felt the spears of it unfurling like a thistle flower. He sobbed as majick flooded him. Except—it wasn’t majick. Not like he knew it. This was different. It felt hot and raw. It
hurt
.

It gouged at him, demanding release. Tears rolled down his face and he clenched his arms around himself as agony shredded him. He groaned, the sound torn from him. Not knowing what else to do, he reached for the strange majick to thrust it from him.

It surged. He blindly flung it away. A dozen paces away it exploded. Fire roared upward into the night. The relief was temporary. Instantly he was filled again. Keros clenched his hands, holding it, his gaze fastening on the Jutras priest. Whatever this power was, he could use it.

He took a step. There was no more resistance. He strode forward through the firefly stars and red mist, stopping outside the spell circle. It floated, enclosing Margaret and the Jutras priest in a rising sphere, the top drawing closed like a mouth as it rose in the air. When he reached the center and Margaret, the Jutras would cut her open and close that mouth, completing the spell. Keros only had moments if he wanted to save her. Still, he hesitated. He’d kill her if he just blasted the priest and the spell. Even if he managed to keep his strike from hitting her, the backlash from the disrupted majick would roast her for certain.

An idea struck him. He grasped his
illidre
and reached for the web spell inside it. As soon as he did, he was caught up in maelstrom of power. It crashed against him like a churn of Chance-driven waves. He staggered beneath the battering pressure. Instantly the majick thistle inside him thrust thorny spines through him. Where the two powers touched, red lightning crackled and snapped. It sizzled through him. His body convulsed, his arms twitched, and his legs quaked.

Suddenly he understood. Somehow—he had no idea how—he had become the battleground between two powers: Jutras blood majick and Crosspointe’s
sylveth
majick. He was trapped between horror that Jutras majick could take root in him and the gut-deep primitive urge to survive.

He drew back hard on the spines of the thistle, trying to pull it back inside himself. It didn’t move. Blood majick. He bit down hard on his lip and blood spread across his tongue. Majick flared like the sun and, with it, a physical pleasure. He grappled with it, driving it back to the center thistle. He hammered at it until it gave and compressed down into the pulsing flower.

But the waves of
sylveth
majick continued to pummel him. He clenched his hand around his
illidre
, straining at the wild majick. As soon as he turned his attention from the thistle, it opened again. He pushed at it and from the corner of his eye he saw the Jutras priest make his final circuit around the spiral. He stood in front of Margaret, his legs splayed, his arms outstretched, his head thrown back to the sky.

Keros didn’t think. He shoved to his feet and snatched at all the majick in reach—blood and
sylveth
. He forced them together, forging a long lance of power. It rippled and bubbled, resisting. He brutally smashed down on it with all his need, demanding obedience. To his shock, the majicks answered, bending to his will. He didn’t wait. He whipped it through the Jutras priest’s spell, aiming to hamstring the man.

The strands of the spell cut apart like a spiderweb. The sphere collapsed with a burst of sickly orange light. Wind roared. A cyclone spun up out of the broken spell. Pebbles, twigs, and dirt whirled on the spiraling wind. It shrieked with elemental fury. More than that, Keros realized, feeling a brush of fear and pain as the winds expanded and picked at his clothing. The spell was fed by Margaret’s suffering as well as her blood. Suddenly she flung her head back, her spine arching. The tendons in her neck corded as she screamed. Orange majick played over her, winding around her in a tight funnel at the core of the cyclone.

Fury blazed in Keros. He drove the lance at the priest. The Jutras leaped aside, chopping his sword down. The lance shattered. Thunder exploded and the ground heaved. The broken majick lashed back on Keros. Pain spiked through his skull and he clutched his hands to head. The thistle of power opened and its spikes thrust outward.
Sylveth
majick seized him in a meaty fist and squeezed. He sucked in a raw breath as he fought to bring the two majicks under control again.

The Jutras priest had fallen to the ground. Blood trickled from his mouth as he turned onto his stomach and tried to push himself up. The backlash held him pinned. With a mighty thrust, the priest found his feet. He staggered, buffeted by the majick winds. Cuts and welts rose on his skin as debris slashed across him. He still clutched the hilt of his broken sword. Now he sliced the jagged end down his forearms. Blood ribboned down his skin. His yellow eyes glowed as he pulled in power.

Keros gritted his teeth. He couldn’t let the Jutras gather back the power of the spell or he’d be unstoppable. Without thinking, he flung himself into the maelstrom.

Instantly he was assaulted by pain, horror, and terror—Margaret’s. Tears ran down his cheeks and he sobbed for her, with her. But there was no time. A bolt of raw majick struck him in the chest. He staggered back as fire seared him. Instinctively he grabbed for
sylveth
majick and felt its cooling waves smother the heat. The priest struck him again, this time harder. Keros held his
sylveth
shield, but knew it couldn’t last. He wasn’t strong enough and
sylveth
majick didn’t answer him the way it used to.

He didn’t let himself think about what he was doing. He opened himself up to the whirling majick of the broken spell. For a moment he was lost. He felt Margaret’s pain. It was unbearable. It roared through him and he screamed. His body went limp and he felt himself falling. No! She’d suffered, but he could still save her. If he was strong enough.

He pulled himself back up, but nothing could stop the shudders that quaked through his body. He pulled Margaret’s pain close. The thistle inside opened wide and glowed brilliant white as it fed. Now Keros reached into the chaos of the winds, siphoning away the majick. Another bolt of majick hit him. His
sylveth
shields held. He felt the balance between the two majicks as they settled into an uneasy peace inside him. All around him, the wind died into preternatural quiet.

Once again he fashioned a lance of the two powers, holding it firm in his hands. The priest saw the weapon and blanched, stepping back and bumping against Margaret. He turned, then turned the hilt of his broken sword in his hand. He raised his arm to slash open her throat. Keros didn’t wait any longer. He swept the lance down, slamming it into the crease between the priest’s neck and shoulder. It severed flesh, bone, and sinew and drove him to the ground. Blood fountained. The blood majick in the lance absorbed it and fed it down into Keros. The
sylveth
majick fluttered and recoiled, but Keros ruthlessly welded it back to the blood majick.

He lifted the lance and whipped it down again, chopping through the priest’s neck, severing his head.

Silence fell, broken only by Keros’s harsh breathing and Margaret’s faint moans. He dismantled the lance and absorbed back the majick before stumbling to her side. Her head dangled limply backward. Her throat was circled with a solid ring of black bruises. Her entire body from head to toe was scraped bloody. His stomach lurched and bile flooded his mouth as he examined her impaled hands. Majick still lit the poles where her blood ran. He felt the pulse of it.

He put his arms around her and lifted, reaching up to remove her hand from the pole. She made a high whining sound. Her eyelids flickered and stilled. He tried again, but his strength was quickly draining away. He swore.

“Can we help?”

He started and jerked around. Ellyn and Weverton stood behind him. Both were white- faced and grim beneath a layer of grime. Weverton shoved passed him to Margaret’s side, his expression turning cold and vicious.

“Hurry,” he said.

He lifted her, and Ellyn and Keros released her hands. Weverton carried her away from the poles and the dead priest, laying her on the grass. He struggled out of his coat and wrapped her in it as Keros crumpled to the ground, unable to stand anymore. His head sagged to his chest and black shadows smothered the edges of his vision. His head spun.

“Can you heal her?” Weverton asked.

Groggily Keros looked up. But it was Ellyn who answered. “I will try.”

He sat dazed as she began her work. He shut his eyes. The ground felt like it was rising and falling like the waves of the sea. Off to the side he could feel the steady pulse of the poles. What were they? Nothing good. He had to take them down—destroy them. He smiled mordantly at himself. He could barely sit up, much less stand. How was he going to tackle the poles? But Ellyn was here now. Together they would manage it.

He felt the surge of her majick and the thistle inside him twisted and opened. He pressed it closed again, feeling the prickle of it piercing him deep inside.

Time passed. He wasn’t sure how long. He wanted to sleep, but didn’t dare let himself. Finally he felt the press of Ellyn’s majick letting up. He opened his eyes, blinking.

Margaret’s skin was unblemished beneath the dried layer of blood. The skin of her hands was whole and tissue thin.

“Will she be all right?” Weverton asked, his voice gravelly. He held Margaret’s head on his lap, his fingers stroking her head.

Keros cocked his head at the other man. His colors were moving rapidly as if stirred with a stick. The misty tendrils reached for Margaret, sliding over her and fastening onto her. Keros watched, fascinated. Slow realization seeped inside him. Weverton
cared
about her. Really cared about her. Perhaps even loved her.

“I think her hands will heal. She has lost a lot of blood. I’ve done what I can, but she needs rest.”

Weverton rubbed a hand over his face and glanced around, then to Keros. “She’s not the only one. We’ll make a camp.”

He gently settled Margaret back on the grass and then disappeared down the slope of the mountain. Keros looked blearily at Ellyn.

“Did you get the boy?”

She nodded, then stretched out a hand to brush the hair from his face. He flinched away from her touch. She frowned, her mouth tightening.

Keros grimaced. “I do not mean to insult you,” he said.

She snorted and started to stand up. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

He reached for her, catching her arm. Power swirled around his fingers and inside him the thistle spread wide. He pulled away, his brow furrowing. He touched her again and this time didn’t draw back when power twined around his fingers. Horrified realization settled heavy in his gut. He squeezed his eyes shut, spearing his fingers in his hair and knotting his fists.
By the gods!

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You look awful, like that day—” She broke off.

He didn’t need to ask which day she meant. There could only be one—the day Etelvayn had been sacrificed to the
sylveth
tide. Slowly he unfolded himself and stood, going to stand by the poles. Spiderweb veins of gold light continued to trace across them. Exactly the same light that had tangled him in the mist. He glanced about. It was gone now, and with it the dancing stars. Or was it? He squinted and saw a faint cloud of gossamer red undulating around the poles. Inside it flashed golden sparks. He scowled at them, his mind moving sluggishly. There was something here he needed to understand. Something terribly important.