Destiny's Star (3 page)

Ezren had rolled to his side, and Bethral caught the glint of his green eyes. White-hot power flared about his body, and the sound grew louder. The power lashed out, hitting the area around him. His eyes closed, and he started convulsing on the cobblestones.

Terror caught Bethral’s throat. If his wild magic had gone rogue, everyone in the courtyard would die, including Ezren.

Bethral caught the glance between Marlon and Evelyn, saw Evelyn stop her apprentice from aiding Ezren. Her heart contracted in her breast. Marlon was going to kill Ezren. He was staring at Ezren, reaching out as if to—

Bethral raised up on her knees, reached over, and jerked Marlon’s arm to the side. “NO!”

Marlon didn’t struggle. He just turned on his side to look up at her. “He’ll kill us all.”

No. Not while she breathed. She needed to get him away, away from the City, from people. No matter the cost. Bethral jerked her head up and caught Evelyn’s gaze. “Open a portal,” she screamed. “As far distant as you can.”

The wind whipped at their hair and clothes, and the fury of the power grew.

Evelyn shook her head. “You’ll be killed.”

As if that mattered. Bethral released Marlon’s hand, still focused on the priestess. “As far, as remote as you can,” she yelled. “Where he’ll not kill anyone else.”

To her relief, Marlon nodded to Evelyn. They’d do it. She just had to get Ezren up and through the portal. Bethral took a deep breath, but before she could stand, a pale hand grabbed her arm.

She looked down and saw Gloriana staring up at her, her brown hair tossed by the winds.

“Bethral, no, no! Don’t leave me!”

There wasn’t time. Bethral had to choose, and she had made that choice long ago. She rose to her feet, fighting the winds. Marlon reached out and wrapped his arms around Gloriana, keeping her down. He was talking, but she was protesting, struggling against him.

The power lashed out, as if understanding Bethral’s intent, striking cobblestones with white shards of lightning, as if the magic itself sensed a threat.

A portal appeared behind the fury, its soft curtains a contrast to the chaos around them. It wavered, then solidified as Evelyn and her apprentice concentrated.

Bethral did not look back. She fought her way forward through the waves of raging power around Ezren. The flares danced around her, striking her again and again. She took the blows as she reached his side.

He wasn’t dead. Bethral gasped in relief. But he was unconscious, his face turned up to the sky, barely breathing. Once again, as she had that fateful day, she reached for Ezren Storyteller, to lift him from the ground.

But this was no starved shadow of a man. She staggered as she gathered him into her arms, barely managing to heave him over her shoulder.

The winds grew wilder still, their roaring almost a scream in her ears. They battered at her, as if to tear Ezren from her.

Bethral bared her teeth, took a step, and then another, trying to walk into the portal. But the magic threw itself at her, and when she tried to step forward, she staggered again, almost falling. Bethral wept in frustration as she strained. She had to—

Bessie was beside her, snorting, nervous, her nostrils flared. Terrified, but standing firm. The cat was on all fours, claws hooked in the saddlebags, every inch of fur standing on end, mouth open in what had to be a hiss of defiance.

Bethral reached for the saddle, pulling herself up and over in one smooth move. Ezren slid off her shoulder, but somehow she managed to keep him in her arms.

The light, the wild magic surged around them. Ezren’s entire body convulsed and Bethral struggled to keep her hold. She leaned forward, and cried out to Bessie. “Heyla! Heyla, girl, go! Go!”

Bessie gathered her hind legs, and started forward.

The raging fury lashed out, striking both at the portal and behind them. A thick strand of impossibly bright white whipped out. Bethral glanced back, saw the strand lashing at the others. It would kill—

The big black man stepped in front of them, naked from the waist up. He stood, arms wide, shouting, “That which was lost is now found!”

Bessie moved, and Bethral’s attention returned to the portal that danced before them. The roan leapt forward, as commanded, bolting into the portal. They surged straight through the raw power. For just a moment, Bethral saw open skies and smelled the scent of wildflowers.

Then the world disappeared in a flash of white. Bethral cried out as Bessie slipped out from under her legs, as Ezren tumbled from her arms.

Bethral fell as well, smashing into pain and the deep darkness of her own failure.

GILLA’S heart stopped when the sky tore open above the Plains.

She’d been tending to the gurt drying racks, turning the pebbles of hard cheese so that they dried evenly. It was boring, a child’s task, not fit for one of her maturity. But she’d gritted her teeth and done it nonetheless, because being an adult meant that you did what had to be done without protest, now didn’t it?

She cast a quick glance behind her to see if anyone was watching her be responsible. But none of the Elders were in sight.

She sighed as she moved to the next rack, shooing gurtles out of her way. A few had wandered between the racks, looking for sweet grass. “
Muwap
.” One of them shook its head, protesting. This part of the herd had just been shorn, and they looked funny, stripped of their fur.

Gilla sighed again as she continued her chore. It was spring on the Plains. Soon, within days, the theas would be releasing the young adult warriors to seek out the armies of the warlords for service, and she’d qualify, if they felt she was ready. And she was more than ready, more than . . .

The sky crackled. The hair on Gilla’s arms stirred, as before a summer storm. The land shook with a pounding of thunder, under a cloudless open sky. She looked up and saw the blue sky tear open to show a white glow beyond.

Her heart froze, the gurtles stilled, everything was silent for a long moment. The edges of the tear pulsed above her, as if waiting.

In the next breath, a horse jumped through the tear, as if clearing the banks of some unseen shore. Gilla had a brief glimpse of two people, one astride in armor, one cradled in the other’s arms as they hung there in midair.

They fell in the next instant, plummeting down, loose and free-falling, and disappeared in the tall grass.

The rip in the sky exploded with light, and disappeared.

“Muwap! Muwap!”
The gurtles around her exploded into action. Gurtles feared what they did not know, and once feared, all they knew was “away,” as fast as their hooves could carry them. Gilla grabbed at the nearest rack and struggled to stay upright as the gurtles bolted by her, bleating their warnings and running straight through camp.

Cries arose from the tents behind her, but Gilla did not glance that way. She kept her eyes on where the enemy had fallen, and warbled a cry to summon warriors to face this threat. She waited as the last of the gurtles ran past, then drew her dagger and started forward.

The young grasses were already springing back as she moved, their flowers torn and shredded by the gurtles’ hooves. She got low, taking what cover she could, and crawled toward the enemy, the hilt of her dagger in her hand, the blade pressed to her forearm. She’d worn her armor this morning, as a warrior should, and her blade was sharp and ready. Her heart beat faster as she moved closer. . . .

The horse staggered to its feet, shaking its head. It was huge, a big roan, and wearing armor the like of which she’d never seen, although she recognized the saddle and saddlebags. The animal stood there, its legs splayed out, head low, as if exhausted. Amazing that it hadn’t broken a leg in the fall.

Gilla watched for a moment, then eased the grasses back in front of her face, keeping a careful eye on the horse. There’d be others coming, but she wanted to be able to report the danger. She needed to see. . . .

Her blood singing in her ears, she slowly raised her head. Two people were sprawled in the grass. The one with the armor . . . Gilla winced at the sight of that one’s leg. Twisted like that, it had to be broken.

The other figure stirred, groaned, and sat up, his hand raised to his head. He was hurt as well, but there was no blood that Gilla could see. No armor, no weapons, either.

He saw the other person and cried out something, then crawled over to remove the helmet. Bright blond hair spilled out, and Gilla could see the still, slack face of a woman. The man grew distraught as he examined her, and raised his head to look around.

Gilla sucked in a breath as his bright green eyes stared directly into her brown ones.

EZREN Silvertongue awoke to pain.

A dull pain, as if his entire body had been wrung out like a cloth. It hurt to breathe, hurt to move. He had known beatings in the time he had been enslaved, and thought he had learned every manner of ways that a body could hurt.

He had been wrong.

Ezren concentrated on breathing for a moment, keeping his eyes closed. He was conscious of the sweet smell of grass crushed beneath him, warm sun, and a gentle spring breeze on his skin. Which was wrong. He was not sure exactly why, but it should be cold. . . .

A rasping purr and a wet nose in his ear made him jerk upright.

Lord of Light, that hurt. He wrapped an arm around his stomach and groaned. But the next breath was easier, and the next after that.

The hideous cat from the barn, the one that had attached itself to Bethral’s warhorse, sat next to him. With its mottled coat of black, brown, yellow, and a kind of green, it almost blended into the shadows in the grass. Its watery yellow eyes stared at him unwaveringly. Accusingly.

Ezren frowned, staring back. Last he recalled, he had been in the kitchens of the Castle of Edenrich, being presented with a bill for damages at the Flying Pig Tavern. He had taken it up, and gone to confront the miscreants, but now . . .

He looked out on nothing but grass and wildflowers, as far as the eye could see. Wide blue sky that stretched from horizon to horizon and filled his vision. His heart skipped a beat at the sight. He had never felt so exposed as at this moment; one man in an ocean of grass. He looked down, trying to steady himself.

The cat stirred, and slipped into the grass. Ezren watched it go, and then lifted his eyes and saw—

Bethral, sprawled on the ground like a broken doll. “Bethral.” He lurched onto his knees and crawled to her side, ignoring the rough grass that cut his hands and the pain that lanced through his bones.

She was still as death, and pale, so pale, under her helmet. He fell at her side, and pressed his fingers to her neck.
Please, Lady of Laughter, let her not be dead.

She lived. Her heart still beat.

Relief flooded through Ezren as he fumbled with the chinstrap, then eased the helm from her head. Bright gold hair spilled out, covering the ground and his hands with its silken glory.

Lady of Laughter, she was lovely.

He had called her an angel once, one of the Angels of the Light, come to escort him to paradise. He had thought himself dead at that time, and had opened his eyes to find himself in a small hut with an angel at his bedside. He had never called her that again, unable, unwilling to try to place any claim upon her. But in all truth she was glorious to look on. Her lovely face, and those bright blue eyes.

Eyes now closed, in a face pale and still. Crumpled, broken, her leg twisted.

Ezren swallowed hard, and looked out at the emptiness around him in bleak despair.

And straight into the startled brown eyes of a young girl hiding in the tall grass.

 

 

GILLA lowered her head and started to scrabble back fast, crawling away from the man. She was so stupid, to be seen like that. She’d—

A firm hand grasped her ankle, and Gilla froze.