“There it is. That brutish temper. Go ahead and let it take control.” Wryan pulled back his blade with a chilling sound. “Make it so easy for Sinevia to make you her puppet, by killing me and becoming a mindless monster forever, leaving the fate of the kingdom—and your whore—in her hands. Whatever you choose to do, you lose.”
Asterious lunged. A flurry of steel and sparks filled the darkness around them. The Woods echoed with the sound of cold clanging metal as their blades danced. Asterious knew he could kill Wyran easily with one stealthy dodge and a swift strike across the throat—and it took everything in him to keep reminding himself that Wyran wouldn’t be worth the price.
Instead, he’d make him feel every bit of pain he’d caused him. Every bit of the torture he’d inflicted on his mind and body through the years. Every scar he’d convinced Asterious to take, he’d give him back.
His Light magic pulsed with each step, each breath. With invisible speed, he landed a well-placed slice across the side of his face. Wryan recoiled for a step as he wiped away the thin line of blood he seemed shocked to see, and then dove back in.
Asterious struck Wyran’s sword, twisting his wrist so that he forced his arm back with it. Wyran yelped, and before he could even think to counter it, Asterious’ blade was forcing his back again, scraping steel. He drove forward, his blade dipping down and across the back of Wyran’s calf, drawing a stream of dark blood down his leg and a grisly cry from his lips.
“Pain is a tool.” Asterious stated, recalling every time Wyran had spouted the words to him. “A necessary teacher.”
He allowed Wyran the false hope of a block or two as he watched him limp toward him, playing on his desperation to hold him off here until Sinevia arrived.
He whirled around, flashing his sword up Wyran’s ribs, flaying open the thin skin to expose the white stripes of bone. “Discipline—isn’t that what you called it?”
Wyran howled in agony, but stubbornly tried to get in another hit, his movements crooked and crippled.
Asterious leapt back, and in the same breath, thrust his sword up into Wyran’s outstretched arm, driving the blade through the flesh of his forearm like a spear.
His blood sprayed. He screamed out once more as his sword dropped to the snow, cold metal on frozen ground. Asterious pulled him toward him before he could drop to his knees, and as he looked into the man’s amber eyes, his mind flooded with echoes of every twisted command, every degradation in the name of making him stronger that he’d ever wielded like a weapon over him. And he yanked him forward, bringing his face close to his.
“Whatever happens to me, it will be at my choosing. I want you to understand that you no longer have any power over me.”
And with one last, unrestrained punch across his jaw, he tossed the bleeding, battered man against the trunk of the great tree that guarded the Veil.
And then he glanced down, smearing away the blood on the hilt of his sword. He focused on the markings, realizing they weren’t just some decorative pattern. In the center of the carvings, there it was, with the same intricacy and delicate design—the exact same runic symbol Caramyn bore on her skin.
58
A Miracle
Caramyn
She leapt from each branch to the next one, nearly defying gravity, carried along by the Shadows and hidden in their mist. The queen rode below, only two remaining Shadow soldiers following behind her as they collapsed every few minutes, the magic sustaining them clearly exhausted, which meant the ones that had scattered with Wyran would be down soon, too.
“I know you’re here, girl. Might as well show yourself,” Sinevia called out with a sinister lilt.
Caramyn ignored her but climbed with purpose so that the branches would rustle with her movement. She wanted thequeen to follow. Wasting her time was exactly the goal. She just needed to give Asterious enough time to find the Blade.
As she moved, flashes invaded her mind from a source she didn’t recognize. Visions of the woman below chasing her. Images of her power, limitless and dark, held back by nothing to keep the balance. It distracted her, and her focus faded as she maneuvered through the woods.
“Perhaps the Shadows will not harm you, but that doesn’t mean they won’t betray your fears. Not when they have no choice.”
She didn’t understand it, but Sinevia had somehow become linked to her mind’s eye. She sent visions of fire, visions of Asterious crying out in agony, deep scars bleeding from his back, and visions of her mother screaming as their home crumbled to ashes. She sent visions of Narahbi and Zera running from attackers in a frozen, empty tundra, and then visions of a black-eyed man gurgling on blood as he drove a sword through himself before the Veil.
The visions spun out of control in her head, coming one after another before she could determine memory from illusion and truth from lies, so horridly distracting and distorted that she couldn’t move.
Sinevia waved a hand, uttering some incantation of old to draw all the Shadow wraiths to her. Caramyn felt their resistance from somewhere deep within her, but they succumbed to Sinevia’s command. They had no choice but to obey.
The darkness surrounding Caramyn swirled like smoke before funneling toward the queen, abandoning Caramyn to the open treetops.
“Stop this!” Caramyn pleaded, the visions clawing at her sanity like ripping open barely healed wounds. “If you’re powerful enough to do all this, what more do you want?”
“I want power that outweighs the fear of losing what I love. The power over life and death.”
“But will it leave anything left for you to love?” Caramyn snapped, gritting her teeth as she fought to shake away the tormenting images in her head.
“I don’t know,” Sinevia cooed. “You tell me, Witch of the Shadow Woods. You’re powerful, and yet you still seem to have lost your heart—and your sense—to love.”
