Aster Wood and the Blackburn Son (14 page)

And then I saw the fire, and I lost my strength once again.

The last, charred pieces of the Book of Leveling lay within the flames.
 

Jade laughed again, this time a much higher, sickening sound. She walked around the fire and crouched before me.

“Yes,” she crooned. “It was a good thing your friend Owyn, here, found me when he did.”

I looked at Owyn, who appeared ashamed, but only because of his weakness compared to her. He showed no sign of remorse, only humiliation. She went on.

“He had come here to try to help you. Imagine my delight when I realized that someone you knew and trusted had shown himself so willingly to us. It would be so much easier to kill you if a friend were the one to deliver you to me.”

“How could you?” I asked, my eyes still on the remains of the Book, her threat hanging between us. Only the cover remained, and the interior edges of a few of the remaining pages. “After everything we did. After your own father sacrificed his life to make sure we succeeded.” I looked up, and her face fell into a snarl.
 

“I don’t think you understand,” she said coldly. “You are about to die.”

“After all those months together, you and I,” I went on. “We gave up everything,
you
gave up everything. For that book.”

Her teeth flashed white like a tiger about to strike. She stood up tall and towered over me.
 

“But I understand now,” I went on. My head pulsed with pain. “You’re still in there. This isn’t your fault. Just come with me. We can set you right. You just need some time to remember.”

Deep green flashes passed over her irises. Her mouth opened again, as if the real her were struggling to speak over the weight of worlds. But the voice that came was not her own.

“Owyn,” she called over her shoulder. “Bring your staff.”
 

“Yes, princess,” he said automatically, his face miserable and pained. He crouched, groaning loudly and clutching his stomach, and retrieved the wood.

This was it. She was going to kill me. I stood up quickly, and the room reeled around me. I stumbled over to the tall table, my hands fumbling with the fabric covering the gold.
 

A flash of power hit me from behind, and I flew across the room. I hit the floor hard, smacking my hands against the cold tile so hard they stung.
 

I could do it. The gold was more important than the book. I could still get it. I rose up and ran for the table again.

Again I was thrust into the air, hit the wall this time and landed on my stomach. My cheek pressed up against the unforgiving mosaic. Behind me I heard Jade’s footsteps, and then felt the searing pain of my hair being ripped away as she lifted my head with it.

“That’s enough, I think,” she said.
 

Something shiny on the floor caught my attention, and I stared at it for a moment, confusion and recognition battling for within me. She dropped my head back to the ground and my temple smacked the floor, sending a wave of misery through my skull and down my back.
 

She laughed, walking away.
 

“Get him up,” she said to Owyn dismissively.

I crawled towards the shining object. In the instant before my head hit the ground again, I had recognized it.

The chaser.

Owyn’s heavy footfalls approached me as I tried to wriggle away, and at the last moment before he reached me, I flipped onto my back, shooting my hand out and gripping onto the chaser.
 

He seemed not to notice my thievery. His own eyes were battling between black and brown.
 

“Why?” I asked. “At least tell me why. You don’t need to kill me.”

“Oh, but I do,” she said from across the room. “The knowledge to destroy my master lay in only two places: the Book of Leveling, and you. With your death, the power to defeat him will be lost forever.”

My insides hurt, not from the pain of the blows I had taken, but from the worry that the words she spoke were true. But a memory tickled at the back of my throbbing brain, teasing me, willing me to remember. An image of Kiron’s face floated before me. Kiron, smiling, as he held up a long feather quill and a ream of parchment propped up against the Book of Leveling.

Hope flared inside my chest.

Owyn stood over me, his staff held high above his head.
 

I couldn’t die now. Not now that Jade had let his secret slip. The Corentin thought I was the only one who knew what was in the Book, the only one with the knowledge of what needed to be done to balance the Fold.
 

And I wasn’t about to let some slave of his end my life.
 

I smiled up at Owyn, and his face fell for a moment, perplexed by my odd reaction. Without a plan or knowledge of what would happen or any intention other than to break away, I took my one free hand and gripped hard onto the base of his wooden staff.

Power exploded from the wood, and it felt stuck to my hand as if someone had welded it into place. The walls of the castle burst out, the glass in the hundreds of tiny windows shattering with the force of the blow.
 

Dust filled my eyes and nostrils as chunks of rubble settled around the room. Jade was instantly upright, throwing the rocks that had landed on her off as though they were nothing more than the lightest feathers. A moan came from the other side of the room, where Owyn lay in a heap. The fire was snuffed out by the wind of the spell, but I didn’t go for the Book. I didn’t need the book, not anymore.
 

It was the gold I needed.

We went for it at the same time. But before either of us reached the table, Jade’s arms rose above her head, and I was struck with the force of every piece of rock dust that still remained in the air. It knocked me backward, and I sprawled out onto the floor, the staff still strangely stuck to my palm as though it had been glued in place there.
 

She snatched the gold and turned away, seeking a place to hide it within the rubble of the once magnificent room.
 

And just like that it was over. With the gold in her hands, I knew I would be dead before I hit the floor one last time.
 

I scrambled up and ran for the door.
 

But before I could make it, something large and heavy slammed into me.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Owyn growled into my ear. Blood trickled from a gash in his forehead, making him look as if he had just taken a shower in it. “That staff belongs to me.”

But it didn’t. Not anymore. I gripped it tightly.

Suddenly, Owyn’s hands could not hold me. Like two magnets opposing one another, every time he grabbed for me, he was pushed away.
 

“Jade!” he yelled, panicked.

Jade had become still. She stood across the room, her back to us, her head bowed over the gold.
 

Then she turned, and the room exploded with her power. My back hit the wall. I held onto consciousness with everything I had.
 

Owyn had hit the ground, at first, I thought, to take cover. But his eyes stared wide and his body was still. My jaw dropped as I realized what had happened.
 

“No!” Jade screamed, her arms outstretched as she ran for him.
 

With acid in my stomach, I fled.

Through the castle corridors, down the long, winding staircase.
 

Owyn.

Lost.

By the time Jade had regained her head, I was at the bottom step, sprinting for the passageway back out to the mountainside. The first blow she sent at me struck the banister, knocking the large, ornamental sculpture from the handrail. The second hit an inch behind my foot as I ran back into the tunnel. The third, fourth and fifth were out of range, the bits of castle they destroyed merely echoing behind me as they exploded with the force of her anger.
 

In my fist, the wood staff glowed. It was automatic. It required no thought, no concentration. My only goal was to get out, and the wood easily lent its power to the task.
 

Rocks started flying past my head, and I realized she was inside the tunnel with me.
 

I burst out of the mountain like a bullet from a gun, careening down the side, searching for anywhere I could hide.
 

Behind me, I heard breathing. Footsteps. And suddenly the light from the staff was no longer the light that lit my path.
 

I dared to glance back, and nearly lost my footing.
 

A foot behind me, running in time with my frantic feet, were
four
feet.
 

Panic overtook me, and I pushed harder. His fangs were so immediate, so huge. The great cat ran effortlessly, taking care to keep close to my side. I ran faster, but I could not escape him. Mad thoughts raced through my head, unable to separate logic from fear.

She sent it.

It’s glowing.

It will devour me.

It will save me.

I shook my head, trying to clear it, trying to decide if I needed to run from it, too. But the shaking only brought about a new wave of throbbing pain. No clarity.

On the mountainside above, a trickle of rocks began to fall. In another moment it was a cascade. Then a full-blown avalanche trailed behind us.
 

She was bringing the mountain down. She would destroy it all if it meant crushing me.
 

The panther kept stride with me easily, its great eyeball seeming to pierce through me. It moved closer. I tried to move away, but it held me in its gaze and wouldn’t let go. It bowed its head as it ran, pushing its white, silky fur beneath my arm.
 

It could be the end. Of me. Of everything.
 

Behind us, the crash of granite pounded down.

It could be death, no matter what choice I made.

I put a hand on its neck, thick and warm. Gripping hard, I swung my leg over until I sat astride it. It burst with speed, jetting down the mountain faster than any boulder could ever follow. Faster than wind. Faster than sound. Faster than Jade’s rage.

And we were away.

I buried my face in the deep, glowing fur of my savior as he sprinted across the valley. My breathing began to steady as the truth sunk in, that the White Guard had come for me again. My heart thudded in my chest, but no longer with fear.

It was with excitement.

Half the mountain behind us was gone, still tumbling after us in a mass of chaos and destruction. She must have seen us go, must have been furious that I had escaped her. But she couldn’t catch us now.
 

Soon, the panther had crested the hill tops on the far side of the valley. He didn’t stop to rest, and I don’t think he would have needed to had we had the time. His breath was even and strong, his giant padded feet confident and true.
 

For a moment that seemed to last hours, I felt free. My commitments, my fear, my guilt at leaving Jade behind, even the pain in my head, all faded away with the thrill of the ride. Like a plug in a socket, I was suddenly connected me to this world. To all worlds.

As the cat slowed, the feeling faded. But when the difficulties of my path returned to mind, they were less terrifying than before.
 

We approached a small pond, shining in the light of Aria’s moon, which had finally risen over the horizon. He lowered his head to drink, and I slipped from his back, almost losing my footing on wobbly legs. I steadied myself against his side, feeling the breath move steadily in and out of his giant body, nearly the size of a horse.

When he finished drinking, he stood beside me, fixing his gaze over the next group of hills.
 

But I wasn’t ready to go.

I stared into his face, into big, calm eyes the color of glacial seas.
 

“Are you him?” I asked, rubbing his neck with both hands. “Is it possible that you’re still alive after all this time?”

Zacharias’s story of Sacha and Pahana had been myth to everyone who had heard it. Everyone but me.
 

The cat lowered his head, butting me in the chest. The force behind this simple movement knocked me back a few steps, and I laughed. I wrapped my arms around his thick, mottled neck and rested my head against him.
 

He was my defender. Incorruptible. Pure and permanent.
 

But we couldn’t stay here forever, as much as I would have loved to stretch out beneath that giant moon and soak in the light.

Once he got going, his pace was easy, no longer flying from attack. I might even be able to keep stride with him if I had tried, but I had no desire to. My White Guard companions never seemed to stick around for very long, and I didn’t want to waste a single second of the time I had with the panther. So I rode into the night, cradled within his power, protected.
 

Hours passed. I became transfixed by the sound of his breath. After a time, it didn’t sound like breathing at all, but song. So I relaxed onto his neck and let his tune rock me until my troubles had once again dimmed, and I felt renewed.

As morning broke, the panther’s feet splashed into bog. Around us the land was vibrant with plant life. Flowers spread out along every surface, lying on thick beds of moss that floated on the water. Each step he took sunk us deeper into the swamp, and soon he was swimming in earnest. I held onto his neck, suddenly worried about what may lie in the depths below us. But while his swimming didn’t rival the speed of his run, we were across the water in a few short minutes, slipping into hiding between the trees. Swamp mud fell from his coat as if repelled by each individual hair, leaving him as radiant as if he had never set foot in the muck. I had no such luck, and as he made his way through the trees, I peeled the slimy bits of vegetation on my clothes away that the water had left behind.
 

He walked slowly now, stepping over fallen logs and bypassing deep pits of mud, carefully keeping us above the waterline. Here, I suspected we would be unseen by pretty much anyone. If a creature so elegant and powerful took such care walking through this swamp, no human would be stupid enough to try it.