Rise of Legends (The Kin of Kings Book 2) (25 page)

“As you claimed my sister would be, yet you killed her with the same experiments.”

That stopped him and made his shoulders sink. “So you’ve brought me here to kill me?”

“Yes.” Sanya longed to instill fear, to make him suffer, but he just looked at her sadly. “Lori will be taking your body upon your death, Father. She deserves life, while you don’t.”

He surprised her by laughing, but sputtering coughs interrupted him. “This body?” He rolled up his sleeves, wincing as he uncovered blood-red boils on his skin.

He snickered at her, and she realized she was making a face of horror.

“What have you done to yourself?”

“How sweet this is!” He raised his fist in triumph. “I’m dying, Sanya. This body is dying, anyway. So go ahead and kill me, and then put your mother…” He laughed without humor. “In this body.”

“It was an experiment, wasn’t it? You never learn!” She wanted to stab him as he cackled.

“I was bored nearly to the point of suicide in that damn palace,” he said. “They gave me nothing that I requested. I was forced to search for ingredients in the forest and couldn’t always decipher which plant I’d collected. I made a mistake, but now I’m glad I did.”

He showed her his stomach. It was bruised on the sides, as if someone had given him a beating. “I wasn’t ready to tell you yesterday because I thought you might be upset.” He chuckled. “Now I’m glad I waited. You never would’ve taken me here.” He lifted up his arms and twirled. “I couldn’t ask for anything better before I die.”

Her mother’s spirit floated about indifferently. Perhaps she couldn’t understand them after all, for how could this evoke no emotion from her? What would Sanya do with her now that her father’s body couldn’t be used? Was Lori destined to disappear like Sanya’s sister? She cursed her father as she came at him, then sliced open his disgusting arm out of anger.

He let out a sharp scream and fell backward as blood and puss poured out. As she stomped after him, he slowly pushed himself up, clearly weakened by whatever had sickened him.

“I was embarrassed to tell you that I had nothing to leave you.” He covered his wound with his shirt and then spat. His saliva was darkened by blood. “Not anymore. It brings me joy to tell you that, by accident, I even destroyed the akorell stone that had been in our family for generations.” He laughed merrily. “And I’m going to destroy that one as well.” He pointed with one hand and fished something out of his pocket with the other.

Sanya quickly turned away from him to guard the stone. She was shocked to find Bliss standing within her father’s bedroom on the other side of the portal.
She must’ve followed me from the castle, probably on Tauwin’s orders. He suspects me of something?
Oh, she must’ve been the psychic I sensed earlier.

There was no more time to think. She glanced over her shoulder to see her father rushing toward her with a vial in his hand. He stopped short as she swung at him, her blade just missing his chest. His eyes were focused on the akorell bracelet around her wrist. She shot a look behind her just as Bliss hesitantly walked through the portal.

“What is this?” the young woman asked with a mix of awe and fear.

There was no time to deal with the stupid woman when Sanya was too busy dodging her father’s attempts at tackling her. She couldn’t think what to do. Should she just kill Spiro as she’d planned? If not, he might ruin the akorell bracelet. Her mother’s spirit was quickly moving away like a startled animal.

Sanya reached out her palm and focused to begin pulling her father’s spirit out of his body, for it seemed to be the easiest way to end him, and the least messy. He screamed and grabbed his head as she got a good grip on his spirit. This was nothing like taking out the dog’s spirit. Sanya gritted her teeth and heaved, but a shooting pain throughout her entire body stopped her as she fell to the ground.

The psychic. Sanya fought back the spell easily, but her father was on top of her before she could rise. She stabbed him in the stomach and the chest as he screamed and made no motion to defend himself. Instead, he put his last efforts into pouring the contents of his vial onto her akorell bracelet. The psychic screamed for Sanya to stop but didn’t seem to be doing much else, thankfully.

She kicked Spiro off her, then tried to wipe the sticky liquid from her bracelet. It was no use, the substance quickly seeping into the rock covering the gem.

Her father lay sprawled on his back, smiling. It was a strain for him to speak, but that didn’t stop him. “I really did…create something…exceptional.”

Then he was gone. His spirit floated up from his body, hovering there as if not wanting to move.

Whatever he’d done to the akorell stone, it looked to be useless now, as it no longer glowed. Sanya would never have another chance to get to the spiritual world unless she got hold of another akorell stone. She wasn’t about to put any hope on that.

She eyed the psychic. “Tauwin told you to spy on me, didn’t he?”

Bliss turned and ran for the portal. Sanya caught hold of her spirit and stopped her as if she’d grabbed hold of her hair. She’d had enough practice removing her father’s spirit to make it easy this time. Bliss shrieked as Sanya ripped it out of her body.

All was quiet.

Bliss’ spirit jittered around, but Sanya paid it no mind. She looked at the two bodies and muttered a curse. There was only one way to bring her mother back now.

Sanya beckoned for Lori’s spirit to come.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

They came to a split path. Jackrie did the same thing as she had each time before, motioning for Basen to use his sword to strike the inner wall in the left pathway first.

His weapon made a sharp ding that echoed throughout the cavern. They waited to hear if there would be a response, but there was none. Basen struck his sword against the wall of rock a few more times and waited a bit longer, but still they heard nothing.

He went back to the split in the path and this time walked into the cave to his right and struck the wall. A dajrik deep within let out a roar.

Without a word needing to be spoken, they followed Jackrie to the left.

It hadn’t taken long for their group to adopt this strategy. Annah told them that dajriks had exceptional hearing, and this was how they used it against them.

“How do you know?” Basen had asked Annah.

“I visited the Slugari colony to see the dajrik and learn as much as I could about him and the Slugari. You never went?”

She posed the question as if he would’ve been a fool not to.
I was too busy working so I wouldn’t starve.

“Oh.” Annah put her hand over her mouth, then dropped it. “Sorry.”

“Yeah.” At least this meant his friends didn’t constantly think of his past, even though they all knew it.

They walked through the caverns for hours. They tried to stay to one direction, but avoiding the sound of dajriks and the glow of akorell metal over their heads sometimes led them astray.

Fortunately Basen’s stomach was full of dajrik meat. Once cooked over the lava, it had been edible enough. It was surprisingly salty and so hard to chew that his jaw still ached. When he’d finished, it became a struggle not to gulp down the last of his water. There was only a sip left in his water skin, and his parched throat urged him to drink it.

During long stretches of silence, Basen’s mind wandered to Sanya. He’d made a portal, one of enormous size compared to the others. Had she felt it even though they’d been within the Fjallejon Mountains? Was she now searching for him to fulfill her threat? He felt as if he should be afraid, but he was numb after everything that had happened.

Alabell had done good work treating everyone’s injuries, though their party still moved slowly. They licked their dry lips and hardly said a word. Basen could walk on his injured leg, but he didn’t think he could run for long if they encountered a couple dajriks.

Slowly, their choice of routes led them to inclines, and eventually, finally, they came to an opening. Too tired to be thrilled, Basen could only smile with the rest of his party. But then disappointment struck him when he saw where they were.

The opening was a hole in the side of a mountain, meaning they’d been underground. They were one or two hundred feet above the ground now, and the mountain sloped down steeply to it. Climbing down seemed to be their only option, not that it would be safe.

Alabell moved far from the opening and pressed herself against the wall. Basen went to her. She’d told him the full story of her escape from the castle, including her slide down the rope of bed sheets. The possibility of another dangerous descent must’ve terrified her.

“I’ll help you,” Basen soothed.

“How?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

She laughed.

“You can go right after me,” he suggested. “And I’ll tell you where to put your hands and feet if you encounter trouble.”

“Thank you.”

They walked back to listen to Jackrie talking with Cleve and Annah as the three of them tried to figure out where they were. Basen squeezed by them for a better look at the land. He was no experienced traveler, but anyone could recognize the desert of Kilmar. It was straight ahead of them, perhaps a hundred miles out. In between was a river that ran to the ocean to their left.

Annah pointed far in the distance, beyond the desert and all the way to the mountains on the other side of the continent. “I think those are the Fjallejon Mountains, which means we’re somewhere along the eastern coast. That should mean…” She glanced down at the land around them. “There, look. It’s the old Kreppen encampment.”

Basen leaned out from the opening. The stretch of dry and broken land seemed to be a day’s walk away. A low wall enclosed the old camp. Some huts still remained. Basen looked through the party’s shared spyglass and noticed each one seemed to be ripped if not overturned.

“Are we certain it’s abandoned?” Basen asked.

“The Krepps who used to live there would not stay after losing the war.” Annah sounded certain. “It would cause them too much shame.”

“Come on.” Cleve turned around and began to climb.

Jackrie grabbed his arm. “Wait. I still haven’t figured out where we’re going.”

“You’ll have time to think while we climb down. We have to get off this mountain anyway.”

“The Dajrik Mountains,” Alabell murmured, then seemed surprised as everyone looked at her. “That’s where we are.”

Basen swallowed a lump in his throat. No one had ventured into the Dajrik Mountains, seen a dajrik, and returned to tell the tale. He wondered if any others had ended up at this very spot, ready to climb down, only to fall to their deaths.

When the moment of tension passed, Jackrie agreed with Cleve that they needed to descend.

“Is anyone scared?” Annah asked.

It seemed like a pointless question to Basen. “Aren’t we all?”

Everyone nodded except Cleve.

“I mean is anyone crippled by their fear?” Annah specified.

Alabell shyly raised her hand. Annah touched her shoulder, and Alabell’s tense face relaxed.

“Is that better?” Annah asked.

“Much. Thank you.”

“Anyone else?” Annah asked. “Basen?”

He stepped away. “I like my fear. I trust myself more when I have an increased pulse.”

He and Cleve went first. Being the heaviest, they could test the rocks before the women followed.

Basen hadn’t climbed anything since he was a child, but he and his friends used to pretend they were explorers as they scaled the mountainous hills around Tenred. A few times he’d climbed up high enough to crack his head open if he were to fall, but he’d cared more about boasting rights than the pride of conquering the dangerous slopes.

Going down had always been harder for him than going up. He used his feet to find the next foothold, only glancing down when his prodding toes found nowhere to go. He went slowly so as to guide Alabell above him.

“Your left foot next. Good. Put all your weight on it as you shift your right foot down. That’s it.”

Cleve made it to the bottom long before everyone else, then shouted directions to Annah and Jackrie when they seemed to be stuck. Fortunately, the mountain wasn’t completely vertical, making it easy to hold on.

Suddenly, Alabell slipped and screamed as she slid down. Basen braced himself and let his shoulders catch her weight. She nearly flipped over his back, but his hand shot up and grabbed her shirt. He pulled her hard into the mountain, and she latched on to the rocks. But with her rear pressing against his head, he had too much of her weight on his neck.

“Can you pull yourself up?” he asked, his voice strained.

She seemed too scared to move. Basen couldn’t look up to give her any guidance.

“Slide down to my shoulder,” he grunted out.

She didn’t move, just made a few frightened murmurs.

“Alabell!” Cleve shouted. “Get your feet on something so you can take your weight back.”

“There’s nothing,” she muttered fearfully, not loud enough for Cleve to hear. “Don’t drop me, Basen, I’m looking.”