Women of War (33 page)

“He says you'd kill me.” Idrian glanced toward the bent remains of the arrowhead, recognizing the soul-silver; he had seen her make the arrows himself.

::He knows I am here::
her bonded sent. Worse, the spirit of Kasash knew all Idrian knew. If he gained control, or turned Idrian to his purposes, he could easily begin a second purging.
::He has to die!::

::Idrian can fight him off—hold Kasash from doing harm. I must give him a chance!::
Sauri argued.

“I can't!” Sauri's vocal denial addressed both bonded partner and fugitive.

::You must!::
The ties binding her to Laana
Kendrisha
tightened. Sauri's hand closed on her sword hilt. Idrian's eyes hazed gray at her movement, his stolen blade in his hand before she could gasp.

Without thought, born instincts and years of training had the sharp-edged steel out of Sauri's sheath and headed in crosswise slant to match Idrian
Kasash
's oncoming thrust. She barely managed to block his cut, caught short by the innocent face of her protégé now taut with fury. Instead of pulling back, Idrian leaned forward putting his entire weight against her raised blade. Sauri's arm shook as he pressed her back.

“Idrian!” She shouted, desperate for the boy to throw off the mantle of Kasash's domination.
::Please!::

For a moment, the cloud shrouding his eyes lessened and the pressure on her arm withdrew. Sauri blinked her relief and made to withdraw.

Gray returned to his eyes in a whirlwind. Idrian
Kasash
knocked the sword from her relaxed grasp, then twisted around to throw her hard against the granite outcropping. Breath was pushed from Sauri's lungs.

::Kill him before we die!::
Laana's voice bit through the dizziness shaking Sauri's skull. The First Castelon twisted to reach her dagger. Before her hand got there, Idrian's came down on her own, his other reversing his dagger's grip. The hilt came down hard on her nape, sending a flash of stars across her vision. Sauri tried to move but Idrian
Kasash
tightened his grip, tugged her around. Still blinking her eyes clear, Sauri missed the dagger's hilt come slamming toward her chest.

Shattering pain mushroomed out from her chest and reached through every nerve, kindling them to finely honed agony. Convulsions wracked her body, bringing her down hard on the wet, jagged rock. Someone shrieked unceasingly, unintelligibly, as pain, confusion, and bereavement echoed into vast emptiness. Utter despair reached out with chill fingers and carried her off into silence.

Ravaging absence shocked Sauri to waking. Something missing. Someone. Missing.

“Laana?” Bleak emptiness jarred where once calm presence had been. “Laana!” This time Sauri screamed, her bonded's name reverberating off the walls with jarring force. Her head ached with devastation. Even the thought of opening her eyes brought wracking contractions of fearful reality.

Footsteps on wood flooring caught her attention. Hands came down on her head. Cool hands. A hot liquid rushed down her throat, bringing ease to the headache, but not to the internal wounds. No, nothing would ease
that
pain.

“First Castelon? Can you speak?” Soft words sounded under the din of internal confusion.

The Kambarna.
Even through the wrenching disorientation, Sauri recognised the soft cotton sheets of the Castelons' infirmary, and the bitter scents of alcohol and asprea tea.

Scrunching her eyes tight, she managed, “Who?”

“Tathroi
Ambars.
”

Sauri blinked her eyes open, bile choking her throat. The round face of the Castelons' chief physician came into focus, his fingers pressing his spectacles higher on his nose. When he noticed her open eyes, he withdrew his hands and came to rigid attention. “The midday patrol found you—you were unconscious, but they found no sign of injury. Even your weapons were left.” His eyebrows rose in silent question, hoping for but not demanding an explanation from his commander.

Ignoring him, Sauri
Laana
saw she still wore her undershirt, though her other clothes had been removed. Tathroi didn't know, then? Shivering, she wondered that he couldn't see the ever-evolving cacophony of pain reverberating through her body. She shuddered with heart-wrenching loss, barely able to see for the darkness threatening to overwhelm her with the knotting contractions of a soul torn to pieces. Surely Tathroi
Ambars,
the head physician, should be able to tell.

“First Castelon? Are you all right? You had a mild case of hypothermia—a warm bath should halt the shaking.”

::Laana!!!!::
Still focused internally, Sauri cried her bonded's name. With the deafening lack of response, she knew she would never be all right.

“First Castelon? The Second is anxiously waiting for word on your health—” the physician prompted.

As soon as the Second heard of her loss, he would be honor-bound to accompany her to the binding chambers in the heart of the Kambarna. His would be the hand to end her life—before the loss twisted her as it once had Kasash
Danitai.

No. I must bring him down first.
A deep hatred twisted in her gut as the face of her tormentor rose in her mind. “I am fine,” she said in a voice that brooked no question. “A bath, then sleep—I will be good as new in the morning.”

Tathroi
Ambars
nodded grimly, not pleased at her response. “Very well, First Castelon. But let me help you to your rooms.”

Rather than argue, Sauri let him haul her up and wrap her in a lambswool robe. Her body quivered as her balance wavered under the strain of Laana's absence. She gritted her teeth and staggered out of the infirmary, refusing Tathroi's offer of help.

Up through the Castelon headquarters, they tread slowly. Castelon barracks were built into the sides of the mountainous Kambarna domain, adjacent to the most compromising locations. Here, at the mouth of the Escraen, the Castelon headquarters stood watch over the area most beleaguered by Zarrista attacks. The southern people yearned for the mystical soul-silver only found in the Kambarna, and rarely a year went by without a major assault.

This is where Kasash
Danitai
held off the raiders before he went mad.
Even thinking about Laana's enemy made real her own grievous injury. Instead, Sauri kept her eyes firmly fixed on the spartan corridor walls of a compound grimly built for war. Every twenty feet, arrow slits cut through the rock, bracketed by glowing oil-filled lamps, which over centuries had added a dank sooty odor to the barracks. Only the elite Castelons could live poised for war at all times without breaking under the need for constant vigilance. They passed startled Castelons in the halls, both patrols and those off duty. Sauri ignored their surprised glances with the aloofness her position allowed.

The First Castelon's apartment crowned the highest section of the Kambarna's southwestern cliffs. Deep in despair, the climb up the rough-hewn staircases lasted lifetimes, an infinite number of moments to remember she was alone.

Alone.

Tathroi paused at her doorway, waiting. Lost in depression, it took a touch on her shoulder and a whispered, “First Castelon,” before Sauri remembered where she was. She rolled her eyes. Most thought her rooms booby-trapped, and obviously the physician gave credence to the rumors. With an annoyed grimace, she pulled open the unlocked door.

No light met them. Keeping the lamps lit had been Idrian's job. A stab of recollection knifed her soul wound, wrenching the sickness deeper. Shuddering, she braced a hand against the doorframe.

“Will you be all right? Should I send someone?”

“I'll be fine.” Sauri managed.

Tathroi
Ambars
' eyes shaded with gray mist as he spoke with his bonded. As she noted the interaction, a blistering hatred rose in the remnants of her soul. How could he not see how it made her feel—what it did? How could he not realize Laana was gone? Gone.

“Go!” She grasped his arm and pushing him back toward the entry.

“But First ...”

“Go. I'll be fine—I'm going to bed. Out.”

The physician was shoved, protesting, from her chamber. Sauri slammed the door, and pressed her back to the oak panel as if she could barricade away the outside world. Finally alone, the First Castelon yanked off the borrowed robe and pulled her undertunic over her head. Her spirit medallion lay seamless within her breast, offering the unspoken but torturous truth. A light indentation marred its once perfect silver. A ripple. How could such a tiny mark have torn her soul apart—ripped her to such shattered pieces?

::Laana. Laana. Laana.::
Sauri's wrenching call sparked agonizing pain through her broken soul-bond. Crumpling to the floor, she lost all sense of time as she pleaded senselessly for a response.

 

As the new day dawned, tears gave way to stunned realization.
If only I had listened to you,
Sauri offered to the memory of Laana
Kendrisha,
stomach knotted with horror.
I should never have trusted him.

Gripping fingers tight into fists, relishing the sharp tingle of nails digging into her palms, the First Castelon knew she should accept death. She should tell her Second, allow him to escort her to the spirit chambers, take the offered respite, and hope for a clean return. But Kasash still lived. Still offered threat to those she had sworn to protect.

In a way, the possibility prodded her sympathies. She relived the moment of intense hatred for the physician who had not noted her sickness, the chilling depression as he used the tie rent from her. Surely for not recognizing her pain, he deserved treatment in kind. She imagined slashing a medallion from Tathroi
Ambars
' skin—lingered on the desire to strike an indent off a pure medallion, as hers no longer was. The shocking picture captivated thought and imagination, offering heady visions of revenge and retaliation.

No. I will not be the catalyst of a second Spirit War.
As she once argued against Laana
Kendrisha,
Sauri now argued as strongly against the insanity the torn binding cast upon her—the bitterness, violence, and hopelessness.

Only one face did she allow the seeds of hatred to cast as an enemy. Only one name did she allow on her lips as a curse. Idrian
Kasash.

When a page came knocking at her door, she drafted a quick note to her Second, delegating him to assign the patrols for the day and to draw up a plan for capturing Idrian
Kasash
. Anything to keep them out of her way—Idrian
Kasash
was hers. As Sauri stood at her room's one vice, a large window overlooking the cloud covered marshlands, a bitter coldness swept through her.

I will find you, Idrian
Kasash
. I'll scour the marshes and drag your screaming carcass through the mud. You think you can ruin me? I'll break you so far you'll be begging me to stop before I put you out of your misery.

Determined steps and movements saw her dressed. She pulled on her linen undergarments, her black leggings, and her black Castelon boots. A light gray shirt went on before dress tunic, embossed with the silver circles of the Kambarna. Dressed, she laced her leather bracers onto her forearms, fastened on sword and dagger, and grasped her Castelon bow from its stand. Idrian
Kasash
might have the innate strength and stronger build, but she had speed and agility. Even without Laana
Kendrisha,
Sauri was First Castelon.

I will take you down,
she swore.

And if she died in the attempt, so be it. Her death was foreordained now. It hovered before her: a darkness on the edge of sight, torn threads of her broken bond pulling her out into a dark and empty void of peacefulness.

But first, the Spirit War had to end. Two hundred years had not seen its conclusion—only a pause as combatants moved to a new frontier of battle. Victims of the war grew in number as soul-bindings linked innocents with once tortured spirits. Madness. Insanity. Death. The obstruction of lives. The breaking of a nation. It had to end.

Mine will be the last hand of war—none else will suffer this!
Sauri promised recklessly.

Slipping unseen from Castelon headquarters would have taken a miraculous feat. Instead, Sauri swept down through the barracks as if she were whole. She saluted the guards standing patrol at the foot of the officers' quarters, then paused to inspect a crew of gray-garbed cadets filling the oil lamps in the stairwell.

One young cadet's eyes misted upon greeting, getting the proper form of salute from her bonded spirit. Sauri's fury rose at the girl's cavalier attitude. “How dare you waste your soul-bond to cover your lack of practice. See the Second for punishment detail.”

With wide eyes, the blonde girl offered a hand to heart, fingers drawn into a circle that was the proper greeting to a superior. “Sorry, First Castelon—I mean, yes, First Castelon.”

At the cadet's surprised words, Sauri recognized her error: using the bond for such things was common.
How dare they take advantage of what they have?
No wonder Kasash had aimed to destroy the bond, with it used in such slipshod manner. Shocked by her anger, the First Castelon bit out a feeble apology. “Never mind, cadet. Carry on.” Continuing onward, Sauri shut out the murmurs of confusion and questioning she left behind.

But if any suspected her broken soul-bond, none questioned. No one asked. The First Castelon made it to the iron-garbed outer door without further pause. With a quick nod to the pair of guards stationed there, she exited the barracks. Outside, a practiced glance revealed the half-dozen sentries scattered through the trees and in the grasses nearby.