“I can’t,” Karr said. “I can’t choose.”
“No,” the girl shook her head, her hair shimmering as it danced. “No, I did not think you would be able to decide.” She smiled sadly at him, one last time.
Then she exploded into stars.
They radiated from her eyes, her mouth, her fingertips, swarming around her, in and out and through, until Karr could no longer see her or anything else at all.
Pain, everywhere.
He was burning with her. They were made of fire and flame, and nothing could put them out. Before they turned to ashes, the ice melted, and an ocean yawned wide beneath his feet.
He sank into the sea as a gentle whisper calmed his soul.
Not yet, my heart.
Not yet.
Chapter 18
Sonara
Alive.
The Wanderer is alive.
Sonara stomped through the tunnels, following the flickering torchlight as Thali walked ahead to guide them back towards their hidden cave.
“I felt the blade go in,” Sonara said, more to herself than anyone else. “I saw him die, right there in front of me.”
If Jaxon were here, he would have agreed, for he’d seen the entire thing happen. He’d given her his scarf, so she could wipe the Wanderer’s hot blood from her hands. And it had stained her blade. Lazaris hung at her side, cleaned of the evidence by now, but Sonara was no fool.
She knew what it felt like to end a man, to feel the blade sink deep enough to stab through the heart. The Wanderer died, right there in front of everyone at the Gathering, and it was her uncontrollable curse that had caused it.
“Well, he’s obviously not dead,” Markam said. His voice echoed off the damp, roughly carved tunnel walls. “But that hardly matters now.Our focus is not on him. It’s on finding a weakness in their boundaries and exploiting it.”
He was right, perhaps. But that didn’t ease the tension Sonara felt building in her shoulders. Something was amiss; a feeling she couldn’t shake, that had her wrapping her arms around herself as they walked, wishing for the warmth of Duran.
The sooner they solved this problem, the better. Then she’d ride free with Jaxon, away from here. Perhaps she’d try her luck pillaging in the west again, where the endless sands turned to dry, brittle ground and flat-topped mesas. She didn’t particularly enjoy the massive, skeletal spiders that walked the Earth there, but it would be best to befarfrom the Garden of the Goddess for a while.
“The Great Mother is at work in all of this,” Thali said from up ahead. “She meddles, Devil. And it is clear she has chosenyouto meddle with the most, if the Wanderer that called to your magic has risen from the dead again.” She looked back over her shoulder, the teeth of her Canis mask flashing in the torchlight. “Much like the Children of Shadow. The Great Mother must not be done with him, yet.”
“Then you believe me,” Sonara said.
Thali’s Canis mask bobbed as she nodded. “I believe that you are the catalyst in what is to be a great quest, perhaps to uncover a message that will turn the tide of this world.”
Markam chuckled from the shadows. “Ooh, a quest. Will there be a prince waiting for Sonara at the end of it all?”
“You should not mock her, Markam,” Azariah said softly. “Thali knows more than most do about the strange happenings on Dohrsar. If Thali believes the Wanderer was dead and has risen again, then I believe it, too.”
“Your time with him is not over, Devil,” Thali said. “I believe soon, you will face each other again.”
Sonara said nothing, for the cleric had spoken plenty of nonsense in their time together, and she feared that if she spoke her thoughts, she wouldn’t be able to hold them in for the rest of the night. She wanted silence. Time to think, and plan, so they could move from talking toaction,and set the prisoners free.
The tunnels stretched on and on for miles, a network pattern in all directions. Old wagon tracks were gouged in the first few miles of tunnels, sprouting left and right where powerful steeds had once been harnessed and used for hauling gold back and forth. Some of the tracks ended in caverns deep enough to house cities, while others ended in caves where night beasts waited to snatch up careless prey.
The Bloodhorns were not a sanctuary for the lost. They were a living and breathing grave, their purple-and-red color an omen for any who entered.
If Jaxon were here, how many bones would he be able to call upon? How many dead would whisper to his curse, begging to find life again?
