Breaking Stars (Book 2) (20 page)

Chapter 19

Robyn saw the spear bloom in Gabriel’s gut, not realizing what it was for a moment. But as he staggered backwards, she screamed and bolted from her guard. The attack was not her imagination, for others had seen the spear strike Gabriel and refocused their attentions on Nolen. She hit the stairs, and Gabriel vanished behind the angle of the construction. The battle around her ceased and moved to the right where she saw Nolen moving behind a new shield. She took the stairs two at a time, beginning to feel the strain in her legs. It had been almost a month since she last went tearing through a forest in a hunt, and her muscles had atrophied. But she was not yet spent, and she pushed on, halfway there. To her right she spied Cordis in attack formation with four other Mages, but when he met her eyes, he dropped the twisting vines in his hands and turned to where his son had stood. She saw him move to follow.

Over the halfway mark, she saw the tops of heads standing close to where Gabriel had fallen. A handful gathered: some with abrasions and wounds, others holding some form of a shield in their Element, and three women among them had their hands over their mouths. Robyn pushed harder, feeling the tear in her lungs, and she spotted the soles of Gabriel’s boots. She came over the stair that revealed the beautiful woman’s face, streaked with tears, and spattered with blood. “Gabriel, she’s coming! Hold on!” the woman shouted, and Robyn saw her bloody hands wrapped around the spear angled in his stomach.

Robyn felt the slick surface of the dais under her boots as she finally jumped up. Gabriel lay still on the floor, a pool of blood mixing with icy water spread around him, seeping into the cracks of the stone and into the woman’s purple dress. There was blood on his cheek and spattered over his chin and neck. His shirt was stained with a dozen more wounds, his sleeves heavy with dry brown blood. His eyes were opened, staring at the blue sky, and his lips were cracked agape.

Robyn fell to the ground beside Markus where he knelt with a hand over Gabriel’s forehead and another around the spear. “Gabriel!
Gabriel
!” Robyn yelled and put a hand on his face, but his blue eyes made no contact with hers.

“Sweet stars,” Markus whispered and held his bloody hand above Gabriel’s chest. “I—I may be able to restart the heart,” he said rapidly. “The brain is still alive for a few moments after—after—I can try, but…I do not know if it will….”

His fingers opened and closed as he controlled a pattern Robyn could not see. As soon as he began, blood spurted from the puncture wound. She could not bear to look at it, but her eyes were drawn to the spear cutting through him. The black shaft thrust through his fine skin in a manner so inhuman. Blood pooled in the dips of his stomach and slid liberally down his waist. Robyn kept looking at it as if her mind were playing cruel tricks, hoping she could see it differently with each blink.

She picked up his hand and heard the sound of metal hitting stone. It took her a moment to realize the sound was important. “Sweet stars,” Markus breathed. Robyn looked to where the sound had come from, and saw the copper Castrofax wristlet laid open on the floor.

“
No
,” she whispered, tears coming to her eyes and voice. “
Please
no.” The woman across from her lifted the other wristlet and began to weep, while Markus slid the neckpiece away. “My Gabriel.” Robyn clutched his hand as the sobs came forth, wishing with every breath that his hand would tighten around her own. His open eyes stared skyward. His fair face was streaked with blood, and his curls hung limply across the red stone. He looked unlike himself. He should be sitting with her across a fire, sneaking gazes with a timid hidden grin, trying new ways to drive her mad and get her into his arms. Her golden band was still around his finger, an anchor to her love for him unblemished by blood and grime.

Markus looked sad, but in a manner Robyn could not place through her blurry eyes. “Pull the spear out, and someone signal for the Head Mage.” The fair woman wiped her cheeks, leaving two smears of red across them giving her a primal look. She handed Markus the wristlet and pulled the spear loose. It made a sucking sound as it came free, revealing a sharp spike of stone bound to the black wood. Someone shot a sparkling flame of white into the sky as a signal.

Balien stepped up on the dais, took one look of the scene, and turned away pinching his eyes shut. From behind him came the small footfalls of Aisling who rushed up and choked a weepy gasp. Markus looked up quickly. “Take heart, Lady. The worst is behind him.”

“I had—I had hoped it would not be this way,” she replied. Cordis trotted up the stairs behind her with a ghastly pale face and took a quiet survey of the scene.

“Cordis, go get the Silex,” Aisling said in an exasperated tone.

“There are two hundred Mages fighting for it, one more will not matter,” he replied and stepped up to Aisling quietly, pulling her into his arms. “Don’t look.”

Whatever they were talking about made no sense to Robyn who was awash in grief. Her love laid dead before her. There was little color in his face and lips, but he was still warm to the touch which made him feel alive. She brushed his hair back where it usually would fall and gazed into the eyes she loved. She tried to close them, but the flesh had no response and remained open.

“What happened to him?” she said, tracing his wounds with watery eyes.

“He was a very brave man,” the woman whispered. “He saved us all many times.”

“Casimir is coming,” Markus said and stood, taking with him the pieces of the Castrofax.

The Head Mage popped over the stairs with a grim set to his face. Secondhand Lael, as always, was a step behind him with an equally despondent look. Lael’s red coat was slashed across the chest but not bleeding badly. Casimir bore no wounds as it was up to his guard to take them for him. He looked over his shoulder where the battle was still commencing and took a deep breath.

Casimir clutched a gold band in his hand studded with uncut emeralds, and for a moment Robyn feared it was another Castrofax. The idea brought new tears to her eyes as she took up Gabriel’s limp hand in her good one. He looked so peaceful, but his wounds told her his passing was anything but.

“What is that?” Markus asked the Head Mage. Casimir made no answer. “Head Mage?” The worried tone he used made Robyn look up. “Oh sweet stars, Casimir, is that Pike’s Ring of Rebirth? You must not! My lord, please, we need you here with us!”

“Do not give me reason to doubt myself, or I may find myself not brave enough,” the Head Mage replied solemnly as he stepped around them to Gabriel’s head. “Had I not dallied I may have been able to spare him some of this,” he swept his hand over Gabriel’s body. “But, alas, the world is full of what if’s and if not’s,” he said as he knelt.

“We can wait for the Silex,” Aisling said quickly. “It cannot be much longer now. Please, Casimir, do not use the Ring yet.”

“Even a hundred Class Fives pitched against the Silex will not make the battle even,” Casimir replied. “Nolen can happily sit behind an everlasting shield while we break ourselves on it. Gabriel’s time is running short.” He looked at Robyn who frowned, not understanding. “I have seen many lovers torn apart by death. My own wife was taken from me so early, but with this last act I can undo at least one of those hardships.” He held her gaze strongly. “Today marks your twentieth birth anniversary, and while it is not common in your culture to give gifts, it is with the Mages. I ask that with this final gift you do all you can to help Gabriel stay on the right path. Make him into an even better man.”

“Head Mage, what do you mean?” Robyn whispered.

“Arch Mage Pike made this many a long year ago,” Casimir replied gently. “Do not be frightened, my dear. Lend me your courage.”

Casimir gave a faint smile and looked up to Lael. He opened his mouth to say something, but thought better and gave the Secondhand a small smile and nod. Lael turned his face away taking in a deep breath.

The Head Mage put the golden band across Gabriel’s forehead to sit as a coronet, marking his pale brow as Robyn envisioned it would be once she took him as husband. Casimir twirled his fingers and set them against the coronet. Lael stepped up and put his hands on the Head Mage’s shoulders, and slowly a hum of energy resounded in their ears.

“Oh, my lord,” Markus whispered, his voice mournful.

The wound in Gabriel’s gut suddenly mended, slowly at first but picking up speed, a circular pattern as the layers of flesh closed. Casimir reached up a hand and closed Gabriel’s eyes with two fingers, and to Robyn’s surprise, they stayed closed.

She watched in silence, baffled as her brain told her it was unattainable, and perhaps her mind had finally broken. Tiny wounds across Gabriel’s skin sealed as the garish gut wound closed shut.

Color returned to her love’s cheeks, Casimir slowly turned white as the rosiness in his face drained. His eyes were heavy as he blinked, and his steady breath came more staggered. Robyn realized what was happening long before she believed it. Behind her with a choked voice Cordis said, “Thank you, Casimir.” Casimir sagged back into Lael’s legs, and the Secondhand bent to support him, wrapping his arms around the old man’s shoulders. Casimir’s breathing was jagged, and his eyes were closed. Lael leaned to lie him down gently on his side.

“Evelyn,” Casimir whispered, and a ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. With her name came his last breath. As he fell limp into the red stone, Gabriel took in a breath.

Chapter 20

‘Do you understand the price?’

The sky had been gray above him, but now it remained a finalizing black, an unending world of darkness, but there were muted voices all around. The spirit world was a dark place, and the faint voices, muffled as though a pillow held over his ears, unsettled him. His hands felt heavy, as if something was clamped around them, but there was lightness in his chest he could not remember having for quite a while.

In fact, there was not a spot on him that ached, burned, or stung. He could not remember the last time he felt so good, and he took in another deep breath. Somewhere far off the in the blackness, he thought he heard his name whispered.

Suddenly, he realized something foreign and familiar stirred in his chest. Something he could almost put a name to as if it loomed before him in the darkness, but he could not see it. It was a kind of flow and a rage and a healthiness mixed with a purity that he knew well but didn’t. Somewhere his name was whispered, this time louder. It took him a moment to put a name to the stirrings in his chest.

‘Blood? Energy? Heat...? Fire?—Fire!’

His eyes flew open, and he realized his world was not shadowed in darkness, but his eyes had been closed all along. He sucked in a breath and took in the blue sky above him that had never seemed brighter. With an inhale came the smell of smoke and earth. “Elements!” he gasped out. His mouth still tasted of coppery blood.

“Gabriel?” someone whispered, still far off to his right, but he was not concerned with the voice. He slipped his hands from whatever was securing them to the cold stone and looked at the wrists. They were bare but for blood and dirt. His hands flew to his neck and wrapped around where the Castrofax would lay, but it too was gone.

“Sweet stars, my Elements.” In a moment of ecstasy, all the weight laid on him the past month fell off. His emotional pain, his physical battles, his weariness and despair all erased whatever brokenness he once felt. Renewed with his Elements, he was unstoppable, and no man could break him with them. Energy and power coursed through him as powerfully as it once had.

The sky above him blurred as his eyes filled with hot tears, and he put his hands over his face.

“Gabriel!” came the voice again, this time much closer and unmistakably a woman’s. He rubbed the tears from his eyes and looked to the direction of the voice.

Robyn’s tear-stained face came into his vision, a hand over her mouth.

“I’m not dead,” he said, more as a question to confirm his own suspicions.

She shook her head. “You were.”

There were tears in his eyes as he tried to sit up, but Mikelle, still sitting to his left, put her hand out to stall him. “You’re weak.”

“I’m not though,” he argued and sat up to survey. His parents stood behind Robyn looking relieved and a little weepy. Balien stood behind and gave him a bewildered look. There were other faces he did not recognize that looked amazed and pleased. A few were weary; saddened by something his life renewal could not brighten.

He stood and felt the wondrous sensation of a body without pain, he drew the energies of the Elements into him. Water was moving all around, Fire blazed in a dozen pockets, Earth grew deep underground, and kinetic energy raged in every direction. He searched his mind for a powerful and strenuous pattern, and reaching a hand to the sky he opened his palm and set the proper Spirit pattern into motion. A bolt of lightning came from the cloudless sky and connected with his hand. The energy pulsated through his body and built, crackling with blue and white intensity. He felt no pain since it was he who controlled it, feeling it stir within, lifting his hair and edges of his shirt. With such power at his disposal he knew any vestige of brokenness, any desire to follow another’s orders, any wish to obey Nolen, had died.

He looked down at the unfamiliar pull of his clothing against his torso. His shirt was covered in blood and his clothes were wet. He pulled the gaping hole away and looked at the girth of the spear still clutched in Mikelle’s hand, bloodied for a foot from the tip.

“Nolen is gaining ground,” a man said behind him, and he looked back to see Lael kneeling beside the pale body of the Head Mage.

Worry flared in Gabriel. “What happened?”

“Nolen killed him,” Lael replied. “Go avenge him.”

Gabriel stood feeling renewed and fresh, but before he could make a decision, Robyn flung her arms around his waist and pulled him in close. He could not help but return the embrace. “I thought you were dead,” he whispered before she pulled away.

He took up Robyn’s left arm. It seemed as though everyone held their breath, and Markus later confirmed everyone had. He probed the healed wound as he searched his memory for every pattern he would need: one to cut the skin; one to form bone; another to create muscle; two to elongate nerves and tendons; another to make blood channels, two to create skin; one to form nails, and three to connect it all to the brain. There would be others later to make hair and pores and fingerprints, but those could wait.

“Be brave?” he asked her, and the way she stared up at him adoringly confirmed she was ready. He flipped together each pattern and held them aloft, ready to fuel them all at one time. Holding all twelve patterns, he took up her arm and covered it with his hands. In one slow movement, he drew his hands back and fueled the patterns.

Everyone who could see gasped and gaped, for as he moved his hands, a new limb formed. Robyn bore a new hand in less than a minute. The toll of the energy loss, for once, had no marked effect on him. He looked over her new arm making sure dimensions were even, and ran a pattern through the joints to see they bent in the right direction. Robyn remained still though it would have pained her and itched horribly, but she only bit her lip. When he was satisfied, he released it with an approving smile, but he also left a tiny scar inside her left forearm. Never again would he be compromised if he had to identify her body.

Raising it for all to see, Robyn flexed the fingers.

The crowd, despite themselves, applauded and cheered while others rushed to see the new hand. Lael gave Gabriel a stoic nod and pointed in Nolen’s direction.

Gabriel looked to Mikelle who was grinning. “Your face is covered in blood.”

“You bleed a lot.” She replied.

“You look terrible.”

“You’re wearing a coronet.”

He frowned and pulled a gold band off his head before tossing it to her. He quickly split the side seam in his boots with a pattern, and kicked them off. He turned in Nolen’s direction and planned his attack. The Prince was pinned at the bottom of the far left staircase surrounded by dozens of Mages. With two patterns Gabriel leaned forward and fell to his hands. By the time he hit the ground, he was fully tiger, as large as a horse and much faster. Behind him Mikelle let out a cry of delight and several people screamed.

He tore off the dais, and raced down the main stairs, leaping a dozen at a time and bounding around broken boulders as powerfully and gracefully as only a large cat could. Most of Nolen’s legion was gone, vanished as soon as they burned, but a few still lingered battling Mages. Gabriel’s vision was tainted with cat’s eyes, sharper but unable to discern blues and greens, but he focused in on the shield Nolen held.
‘He’s resorted to Air, he’s nervous,’
Gabriel thought as he pounced around the people. Some yelled and others shouted in surprise, but it did not stop his forward motion as he raced ahead.

He changed his mind at the last moment, knowing he could not get through the shield without an Element, and instead slid to a stop after breaking through the Mages surrounding Nolen. They backed up as he burst through, but it took Nolen a moment to realize why.

He looked unprincely with his hair fallen from its tie, and his clothes scuffed and torn. He bled into the ground with every step and had acquired a new cut across the top of his left hand.
‘Idiot. With that object the first thing you should do is heal yourself,’
Gabriel thought as he paced once before Nolen. Tabor looked confused and Kindle, held standing by her father, was pale and wide-eyed.

Gabriel drew the fibers of the Mages’ clothing around him as he returned to human form. The look on Nolen’s face summed up a lifetime of evil deeds brought before his executioner. His green eyes were wide as his lips parted, and the Air shield flickered. But he regained control and pinched his face in a scowl.

Tabor and Kindle looked amazed, and the little Princess even smiled, but her father looked anything but happy. Gabriel rolled up his sleeves and made sure to cut the shirt low enough to expose his bare neck.

“I will give you one chance to hand over the Silex,” Gabriel yelled through the shield. The Mages around him backed up further.

“I would never concede to a man like you,” Nolen shouted back. “You are a broken man and you answer to me! I demand you to cut our way through the crowd, Mage!”

Gabriel spread his hands and gave a dip of his head. “Even broken things can be repaired, and my name is Gabriel.”

Using Earth, he pulled a wall of rock between Nolen and his family, and pinned Tabor and Kindle to the right against a fallen structure. He threw the Prince left with a block of stone that sent Nolen reeling and caused him to drop the Air shield. Gabriel’s Earth movements were solid, more like being in a punching fight than a dance. The old motions were as fresh in his mind as the day he learned them—but sweeter.

Nolen scrambled to his feet and pulled Fire from the Silex around his neck, but Gabriel shot a bolt of water into the Prince’s chest pushing him into the ground. All the while Gabriel advanced, keeping a look of calm concentration on his face though his thoughts raged with the memories.
‘I killed for you. I destroyed and murdered for your sick pleasure.’

Gabriel stamped his foot and wrapped Nolen in muddy earth, holding him to the ground and evaporated the water from it. Nolen struggled and got a hand and leg free. He drew on Spirit, but Gabriel pulled soil up again and held the Prince’s arm fast. He hotly debated breaking the wrist. He advanced, and Nolen pulled his other hand free of the soil, a Water pattern already between his fingers, and loosed it at Gabriel.

Gabriel held a hand up and drew the water into a ball, returning it so fast the Prince did not know he had failed until he was dripping with ice water. The water loosened his bonds and he jumped free from the dirt. He stood back; his hands braced at the ready.

“Will you not break the stars again?” Nolen sneered.

“There is but one shining at the moment,” Gabriel replied and pointed to the sun. “Shall I bring it to you?” The calm look on his face gave Nolen pause.

Nolen smirked and pulled Air from the Silex, but Gabriel snapped Fire to life and uncoiled a whip from his hand that elongated as he flung it. It bit Nolen around the right forearm. The Prince let out a scream as Gabriel pulled back and brought Nolen closer. “You haven’t learned how a Fire Mage avoids getting burned,” Gabriel said as the whip loosened, leaving three burning coils around Nolen’s arm.

Before Nolen could heal himself, a streak of tan shot towards him and punched through his chest. He staggered back and gasped, his hands coming to the arrow protruding from his torso. No one but a certain vindictive Princess would use such a weapon, nor could anybody hit a target so far. Gabriel glanced behind him and raised a hand in question. He swore he heard Robyn laughing. Nolen jerked the shaft free with a great cry and doubled over, spilling blood onto the cobblestones.

Before Gabriel could continue, a figure appeared in the corner of his right eye.

He thought it to be another Mage of Jaden, but the man was not familiar. He wore his hair long and pulled back. His clothes were finely tailored; his coat striped white-and-black cut in military fashion split down the center. He had a serious set to his dark eyes, and they quickly surveyed the surrounding area and met Gabriel’s glare.

“I’d think it kind if y’ would take your attention off Prince Nolen, ac set it elsewhere.”

The accent was as unfamiliar as his face, but it still made Gabriel’s skin prickle. The man appeared from nowhere, and his association and unfamiliarity could make him only one man.

“Ryker,” Gabriel hissed, turning his body to face the man.

Ryker put a brow up and tilted his head forward to Nolen as a father would look disapprovingly at a child. “Did y’ let him escape?”

“I do not know how he freed himself,” Nolen snapped as he finally began healing patterns. “I thought him dead.”

“That pleads par more information. Y’ got the Silex, that’s what matters.
Y’
, I will deal with later,” Ryker said and pointed at Gabriel, taking two steps closer to Nolen.

“You’ll deal with me
now
,” Gabriel interjected and threw together the most dangerous pattern he could think of. The kings-messenger pattern was named for killing half a legion, and it required Fire, Spirit, and Earth. As it slipped from Gabriel’s fingers, Ryker showed his surprise and threw up a blinding pattern in retaliation.

The world turned white as an explosion deafened Gabriel, throwing him to his back and knocking the air from his lungs. He blinked dirt from his eyes while gasping and sat up quickly, expecting Ryker to come striding out of the dust. Whatever Ryker raised had diverted Gabriel’s pattern into the ground, but it did not completely fail.