Bound (Bound Trilogy) (39 page)

I tried to yell for him to go back, but couldn’t make any sound. The guard spun me around and pinned my arms behind me, using me as a shield. He held me up even as my knees weakened and I slumped against him.

I lifted my head and watched a scene that seemed like a dream unfolding at half-speed before me. An eagle was attacking a dark-haired man. I’d once doubted Aren’s choice of forms for use in battle, but now saw how wrong I’d been. His long talons ripped at the man’s face while his massive wings beat around the head, confusing him. The guard’s face quickly became slick with blood from wounds in his cheeks and scalp, and one of his eyes hung limp against his cheek.

It would have been terrifying if anything had mattered to me at that point, but I felt completely separate from all of it.

The screaming man stumbled backward into the fire and almost pulled his foe in with him, but Aquila—
no, Aren,
I thought—shrieked and slashed down with his beak into the hand that held him, and the man flung him off. The smell of burnt feathers filled the clearing, but Aren flapped away as the guard fell into the flames and disappeared.

Aren flapped down to land on the bare ground at the edge of the clearing, then pushed upward again, lifting off a moment before a net hit the ground. He landed on a tree branch on the other side of the clearing, panting. The rest of Severn’s guards had frozen in place, but someone yelled and they moved forward together. The first to reach Aren was a large man wearing elbow-length dragonhide gloves. Aren shrieked and took off, climbing high, hovering, then dropping toward the man. He put his hands up, but Aren got his talons around the man’s thin neck, and they fell to the ground together, rolling toward one of the women.

I found my voice and yelled. The guard holding me clamped a hand over my mouth, but Aren had heard. When he pulled free, leaving the man lying still in the dirt, he was ready for her. She wasn’t wearing gloves, and pulled back when he slashed with his beak. He backed under a tree and disappeared into the shadows.

I looked to Severn, who stood in the flickering light, face devoid of expression, taking in what was unfolding before him. If he cared that his people were being sacrificed, he didn’t show it.

The woman screamed. Aren lunged from the trees at face height. His talons caught her throat as he passed. He fell to the ground, one wing held out to the side, bent.

The guard pressed both hands to her wound and stumbled toward Severn, crying, “Help me, please!”

Severn only watched her for a moment, then waved his hand at her. The blood flowing between her fingers turned into flames that consumed her almost instantly.

Aren fought hard. When I looked back, the remaining soldiers were splattered with blood. But he was tangled in their net, and a man wearing heavy gloves that looked like thick dragonhide held him tight. Aren’s blood-streaked head was pinned against his breast, and he shrieked as the man crushed his injured wing.

Severn smiled as he stepped forward. Aren glared fiercely up at him.

Severn removed his gloves and reached out to touch the golden feathers that stuck out through the netting. “Pretty,” he said. “It’s a shame, really. We could have accomplished so much together if only you’d been honest about your abilities and let me guide your power better. Seems like such a waste. Now change back. I want to look you in the eyes—your human eyes—before you die.” Aren struggled against the net. “And if you try to harm me, I’ll have them kill her. Drummond, put him down and step away. All of you, step away.”

Aren looked at me.

Fight and live
, I thought.
I’m done.

Aren nodded as well as he could bound in that net, and Severn stepped forward and reached for the strings, which dissolved under his touch. He stepped back—too quickly, I thought. Aren glanced at me again, shook his feathers out, and changed.

One moment he was there, and then not. He reappeared so quickly that if I’d have blinked, I would have missed it. He crouched on the ground, still glaring up at his brother. He stood, and I wondered how it was possible for someone to look completely self-assured and calm standing naked before the one person he’d been afraid of for so long. Severn wore boots with low heels, but Aren stood tall enough to look straight into his eyes. His injured arm hung limp at his side, the forearm twisted awkwardly inward.

Severn drew a twisted knife from beneath his cloak. Dark-bladed, like the one Aren used.

“A bit old-fashioned, don’t you think?” Aren asked.

Severn shrugged. “Unlike you, I enjoy getting my hands dirty, but I suspect that things may be rather complicated with you and my magic. Besides, if I do it right, this will be more fun.” He pressed the tip of the knife into the front of Aren’s shoulder, the exact spot where I’d rested my head when we danced. Blood blossomed around the knife and flowed freely toward the ground as Severn pushed harder.

Aren gasped and tried to pull back, but the guard behind him wrapped his hands around his arms. Light flashed, the fire dimmed briefly, and the guard fell away.

Aren leaned forward, bracing his good arm against his knee. “Did that hurt you?” Severn asked. “Drain you? You never were as good at that as I was. And I don’t imagine it’s easy while your magic is busy trying to heal you.” He placed the tip of the knife under Aren’s chin and flicked it upward, cutting him again. His other hand shot forward and grabbed Aren’s broken arm, twisting it. Aren gasped and fell forward.

I twisted out from behind the guard’s hand. “Stop it!” I yelled. Severn grinned.

Aren’s back heaved as he took in deep breaths of the smoky air. He looked up at Severn, then slowly stood, holding his arm against his side. Blood poured from his shoulder in a river that flowed over the hard curves of his tensed muscles, and when he raised his chin a tiny stream dripped from his face. “I’ll survive.”

“I doubt it.”

Someone groaned. When they both turned to look at me, I realized that the sound had come from my own throat.

“Oh,” Severn said. “I did say that if you showed up I’d let her die quickly. Shall we take care of that now?”

Aren’s jaw muscles flexed. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said through clenched teeth, and lunged forward to grab the knife. Orange flame flashed between them, and Aren pulled back, hissing.

“Then stop fighting,” Severn growled. He motioned toward me, and the guard dragged me toward them.

“Aren, fight. Run. I don’t—”

The guard twisted my hand up between my shoulder blades, cutting off my words as I sobbed. Aren lunged at him, but halted as Severn turned his knife on me. I sank to my knees and Aren dropped beside me. He put one arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. I leaned in, pressing my face to his blood- and sweat-slick skin.

Severn laughed, a low, cold chuckle, and I looked up. “Gods, Aren, look at you. Pathetic. I always knew you had your mother’s weakness in you, but I never thought I’d see this day.”

I felt Aren tense.

Severn inhaled sharply, air hissing through his teeth. “Don’t.” The guard who’d been holding me fell to the ground, then climbed to his feet in a daze and began backing away. When I turned to look at Aren, he had his gaze locked on the guard. The man disappeared into the darkness and returned with a black horse that tried to shy away from the fire.

Severn kicked out, and his heavy boot caught Aren in the side of the head. I tried to catch him, but my body was too weak, my limbs uncoordinated. We both fell to the dirt, and my stomach muscles seized in a spasm of pain. Aren pushed himself up on his good arm.

Aren wiped the blood from his chin. “I’m not going to stop fighting until you let her go.”

Severn tilted his head to one side. “You know you can’t win.”

“I’ll try.”

“Hmm.” Severn looked at his guard. “Take her to the horse. Aren, make this easy and she can go. I want to be done with you. Now.”

Aren narrowed his eyes at his brother. “I don’t believe you.”

“We’ll give her a head start while I deal with you, then.”

“She makes it to the bridge. And I won’t fight you. No magic. Nothing.”

Severn rolled his eyes. “Fine. But I make no promises after. If she returns to Tyrea, she’s fair game.”

Aren turned to me. “I think that’s the best I can do for you.”

“No,” I groaned as the guard pulled me away, dragging me over the dirt.

“It’s all right,” Aren said. “Just go quickly. I have no doubt that they’ll be after you as soon as I’m dead.”

The guard pushed me against the horse’s broad, sweaty side. The saddle leather scraped my face. I turned back. “I can’t. You go.” I remembered his objection when Arnav said I was going to die. “This isn’t how it ends.”

He tried to smile, but looked so sad. “I think it is. I’ve done many things wrong in my time, but this isn’t one of them. You’re going to live and be safe.”

Severn rolled his eyes. “Dear gods, you’re disgusting,” he said. “You should thank me for putting you out of your misery.” He grabbed Aren by his injured arm and lifted him, then spat in Aren’s face. Aren didn’t seem to notice.

Severn checked the blade of his knife and tested it by slashing at Aren’s arm, several shallow cuts that painted his skin with blood. Aren twitched and his lips pulled back in a snarl, but he didn’t resist. Severn touched the blade to Aren’s throat, just hard enough to hurt, to draw blood. Taking his time. Enjoying it.

Aren’s face relaxed. He’d known this end was coming since he decided to help me.

And that’s love.

Silence descended over me, blocking out the sounds of the fire, the river, and the wind. That power that I now recognized as my own magic roiled inside of me, ready. I sensed that I could hold it back, perhaps for long enough to make it to Belleisle.

I wondered what a place called “beautiful island” would be like, and decided I would never know.
One more time
.

A rushing noise filled the silence, as though a mighty dam had been opened, and everything inside of me was tossed in the power of the force that gripped me. Light bright enough to wash out even the pain in my head burst around me, and I fell to my knees. My arms swung out in front of me, and the magic tightened every muscle in my body in excruciating spasms as it swept out of me and toward the people who stood near the fire.

The horse behind me screamed and bolted.

Aren’s eyes widened, and Severn turned toward me, startled. The remaining guards yelled, but all fell silent at the same instant. I tried to hold on, to watch what happened, but the white light ripped through me and stole my sight, leaving me blind and falling into a darkness I welcomed with everything that was in me. I was ready for the end, and went hoping that Aren would be spared from whatever it was that I’d unleashed.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Aren

I
had only a moment to react, to realize that she had released her magic and to shield myself from that flood of raw, destructive power. I began to change and halted the transformation in the instant when I was without a body. Everything in me screamed for physical form, and trying to hold it at bay was like drowning, like trying not to take the breath that would kill me. It was the most dangerous magic I’d attempted since my first transformation, but there was nothing else I could do.

Even without a body I felt the blast pass through me, though it felt more like a hot breeze than the punishing wave that crashed over the others. I had no eyes to watch what was happening, but I was aware of lights being extinguished all around me. Severn’s burned red, and didn’t disappear like the others. Instead it seemed to rush away, growing smaller and more distant in the instant before the others were destroyed.

I felt myself slipping away, being pulled in a thousand directions, scattered. I fought to call my physical self back to me. For a moment is seemed that it wasn’t going to happen, that I was as dead as any of the others. Then it came rushing back, blessed weight and form, blood and bone and muscle, as though grateful not to have been forgotten. The world took shape around me and I gasped in air that now burned with cold. Severn had taken his fire with him.

Piles of cloth littered the moonlit clearing. I crawled toward one, but there was nothing there. No bones, no ashes, nothing to indicate that someone hadn’t just stepped out of his clothing and gone about his business elsewhere.

I was fortunate that the first items of clothing I found were large. I struggled into them as quickly as I could, but my muscles refused to work together properly. When I tried to stand, my legs bucked under me. Perhaps this was the price I was to pay for my experimentation.

At least I was alive.

I pulled a dirty cloak around my shoulders and dragged myself to where I last remembered seeing Rowan.

She seemed to have disappeared, too. The pile of cloak and boots seemed far too small to hold a body.

“Rowan,” I called, my voice a hoarse whisper. No answer.

I dragged myself closer and found her curled on her side. The faint moonlight played off of her pallid skin, giving her a ghostly appearance. I collapsed beside her and pulled her close. Her body was limp, and she didn’t respond to my voice or my touch. I shook her gently, and her head rolled from side to side. She wasn’t breathing.

“No,” I groaned. “What did you do?” She could have got away. I wanted to be angry with her for releasing the power she knew would kill her, but I couldn’t. Hadn’t I been willing to do the same for her?

I tried to push myself up, but my arms gave out, and I lay with my head resting against her chest. I closed my eyes.

Thump.

I reached out and pressed my fingers to her throat. There was movement. Barely a tremor, but her heart was beating. I put my face near her mouth, and felt a slight warmth as she exhaled. It was enough. I didn’t know how, but she was alive.

We needed to get away from that place as quickly as possible. I didn’t know what she’d done to Severn, but he was still alive somewhere, and certainly furious. It seemed we both knew tricks that the other was unaware of.