Rise of Legends (The Kin of Kings Book 2) (36 page)

“Promise you won’t hurt Lori,” Sanya demanded of Terren. “Promise me now, and I’ll know if you mean it.”

“She’ll be returned to you safely.”

Sanya changed her psyche to tell the dajrik that more enemies awaited to the southeast. He bounded off, forcing her and Reela to run to keep up.

Glancing around, Sanya saw that the battle seemed to be coming to a close as the last of Tauwin’s men fled. Reela screamed at her comrades not to shoot Sanya or the dajrik and that she would explain when she returned. Some of the archers and mages aimed their weapons anyway, but Terren’s shouts to lower their weapons got through their desire for vengeance.

Once they’d left everyone behind, Sanya finally felt as if she could breathe again. But Tauwin’s catapults in Oakshen were a few miles away, and she was already so exhausted. She jogged in silence beside Reela for a while, both of them sharing glances just to keep the other aware that they were ready for anything. Sanya doubted Reela would try to kill her, but she would be a fool to trust the other psychic completely. Reela probably had the same two thoughts about Sanya.

As time went on, Sanya realized why Reela and the others from the Academy had come into the forest. “You’re trying to get through to Trentyre, aren’t you?” Sanya asked.

Reela ignored her.

“And you plan on using the abandoned Slugari colony as an underground tunnel,” Sanya added.

“And what are
you
doing in the forest?”

“Do you really care?”

Reela gave her a rude look.

“I don’t mean to offend you,” Sanya explained. “But if you’re trying to make conversation and don’t actually care about the answer, then don’t bother asking. It’s enough work keeping this dajrik from killing us while running behind him.”

“Then let’s have him carry us.”

“Didn’t you just see him use those enormous hands to crush people?”

“You don’t have to if you’re scared, but I’m tired. Have him stop.”

Sanya obliged. The dajrik grunted and panted as his long strides came to an end.

“Kneel down and open your hand,” Reela ordered, and the dajrik did as she commanded. “Now open the other.”

Reela cautiously stepped onto his palm, but Sanya hesitated.

“I’m waiting to make sure he doesn’t crush you,” she explained when Reela stared at her.

“Well I’m waiting for you before he puts me on his shoulder. Are you coming or not? You must feel that he’s eager to keep going. The longer we hold him here, the harder it’s going to be to keep him from killing us.”

Sanya wasn’t sure she could keep up the spell while jogging all the way to Oakshen, so she cautiously stepped onto the giant’s hand. When he made no motion of closing his fingers to crush her, she swallowed and got down on her knees for better balance.

“Now have him lift us,” Reela said.

She and Reela told the dajrik to put them on his shoulders. His hand shifted as it closed around Sanya, his fingers pinching her hips and bosom. She had a frightening moment of struggling to breathe, but he lifted her quickly to his shoulder and set her down on her stomach.

She clutched him to keep from falling as he rose. When he was upright, he allowed her and Reela a moment before he began to move. Sanya quickly turned her body to sit on his shoulder. Looking for something to hold onto, she gently grasped the horn situated on the side of his head. It was as hard and gravelly as a rock, but what really bothered her was his solid shoulder bone beneath her rear.

He began walking, sending pains up her spine. She shifted closer to his neck and found some relief. But here, beside his face, she could feel his hot breath every time he huffed.

She soon sensed his discomfort with her holding onto his horn, so she shifted her hand to the back of his neck. Her fingers touched Reela’s, but neither would give way to the other. She leaned back to find Reela leaning back as well, an annoyed look on her face.

“Move your hand if you don’t like it,” Sanya suggested.

To her surprise, Reela barked out a laugh. “Never in my life did I think I would be riding a dajrik and holding hands with you.”

For just that moment, Sanya felt like she had a friend. But then Reela frowned and Sanya felt foolish for thinking it.

“We could’ve been close and accomplished so much together,” Reela said, “if you hadn’t done what you did.”

“I had to do it to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish.”

“And what is that?” Reela replied snidely. “What’s worth killing your friends for?”

Sanya fell silent as she contemplated whether the truth would help or hurt her.

“By your choice of hiding in the Slugari tunnel, I would assume you were trying to elude Tauwin’s troops as well as the Academy’s.”

“They’ll kill me. Tauwin will order them to.”

Reela leaned back to show Sanya a suspicious glance. “I don’t believe you.”

“You do. I can tell with psyche.”

Reela clicked her tongue and muttered something as she straightened, the dajrik’s massive head between them. “Fine, why does Tauwin want you dead? Did you kill one of his friends like you did mine?” Reela shifted her hand higher on the dajrik’s neck so it was no longer touching Sanya’s. “And who was that woman with you?”

Sanya had spent most of her life keeping secrets and she wasn’t ready for everyone to know everything, which would happen soon after she answered any of Reela’s questions. Exhaustion already made it difficult to maintain control of the dajrik, giving her no energy to think of what to say.

Reela continued in an angry tone. “So you’ve turned all of Ovira against you except for that one woman. Is this really what you wanted? I find it hard to believe you have no regrets. You saw what Effie was like earlier. That’s what all of us could be like if we had no empathy, guilt, or fear, like you. We would quickly destroy ourselves. But at least with Effie it was temporary. I can’t say the same about you.”

“You’re right. I’m a monster. Is that what you want to hear so you’ll shut up?”

Fortunately, a distraction came when the dajrik chanced upon patrolling army men. They must’ve seen him coming, for they were running in the other direction before Sanya had spotted them down through the tree branches. The dajrik broke the thick branches in his way as if they were sticks, intending to give chase, but Sanya and Reela commanded him to continue on his route.

“What will you do after the dajrik destroys the catapults?” Reela asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“What were you planning to do before Tauwin ordered your death?”

Sanya didn’t see the harm in telling Reela the truth, but she didn’t trust her own judgment anymore. The day had gone on too long. She needed to rest her heavy head. There was one thing she could safely admit that might shut Reela up.

“I was going to kill Tauwin eventually, but I was interrupted by unforeseen problems.”

At least that quieted her for a while.

“Sanya,” Reela eventually muttered.

She leaned back to meet Reela’s eye. The woman looked tired, so utterly tired. They spoke no words, using only psyche to communicate. Sanya had never had such a conversation, and she was overwhelmed with emotion as Reela shared her feelings with her. Reela had been fighting for more than a year straight. She just wanted it to end.

But Sanya had been fighting for longer, which she communicated to Reela. She’d grown up being tortured, learning that power was the only way to stop the powerful. Her only joy had come from strengthening her abilities so that one day she could find justice.

“What have you longed to resolve for so long?” Reela asked, her eyes holding sadness. There was no way she could read Sanya’s exact thoughts, but she’d let her emotions be as clear as words on a page.

“I’ve resolved it recently.”

“Then why are you still longing for it?”

Sanya muttered a curse. She’d given Reela a glimpse of her deepest emotions, ones she wasn’t sure she was ready to face yet.

“I don’t know,” Sanya admitted.

“Maybe because you hurt so many good people along the way.”

“Let’s go back to being quiet.”

“Just tell me one more thing.”

“If you promise it’ll be the last you speak about anything but destroying the catapults.”

“I promise.” But Reela then didn’t go on. Sanya leaned back to read her expression and found her with her mouth agape as if unable to speak.

“What?”

“Alex…was it really you…who…?”

“So I see he found Effie at the Academy.”

Reela’s eyes went wide with a look between horror and amazement. “How is what you’ve done even possible?”

“Didn’t Basen tell everyone what I told him the night I spared his life?”

“Yes, about the spiritual world and your quest to retrieve your mother from it. All of us assumed you were insane.”

“I might be, but you
can
bring people back from the spiritual world. Alex is proof of that.”

“That woman!” Reela yelled. “She’s your mother, isn’t she?”

This is why you shouldn’t have answered any of her questions.
“She’s having trouble acclimating to her new body.”

“Because this is unnatural! No person should hold such power.”

“Tauwin has more power than I do.”

“No, he has more wealth.”

“Same thing,” Sanya said. “It’s just as dangerous in the wrong hands.”

There was a long pause before Reela spoke. “Why use a dog’s body?”

“Because it was easier than trying to get a person into my portal.”
Alex was a test
. But Sanya was smart enough not to admit this to anyone who cared about him. “How is he doing?”

“Effie and I only spent the morning with him. I’m not quite sure how to answer you.”

“Was he in pain or discomfort?”

“Tired, hungry, and thirsty, yet he was clearly Alex in a dog’s body, but…”

Sanya dreaded what Reela was about to say. To make matters worse, Reela couldn’t seem to get the words out, suspending Sanya in this moment.

“But what, Reela?” she snapped.

“There’s something different about him. I noticed it as I left.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever sensed someone as they were falling asleep?”

She knew exactly what Reela was getting at, and her heart seemed to stop. “Yes, their energy slowly changes until you don’t recognize them anymore through psyche. You’re saying this is happening with Alex?”

“It does feel that way. I’m losing touch with him while he’s inside that body. I could never tell Eff.” She let out a frustrated breath. “No one goes near him, except Effie. Most can’t even look at him without grimacing. Imagine a friend who died is alive again in an animal’s body. It’s not right, Sanya.” She paused, as if to give Sanya a chance to respond, then went on when Sanya didn’t. “I hope you don’t think you’ve done any of us a favor, because what you’ve really done has
ruined
the memory of him! And I will always hate you for it. You took him from us, then you took away—” A sob interrupted her. She held back tears as she forced the last out. “You took away his dignity. There’s nothing more cruel that you could’ve done.”

Sanya ignored Reela’s last words, wishing she had some way of knowing what would eventually happen to Alex. Hopefully he wouldn’t continue to get worse, like Lori was. If he did, it might mean that there was no salvation for her mother.

“Sanya, don’t you see that bringing back someone from the dead is unnatural?”

She didn’t answer.

“You’re going to ruin the memory of your mother just the same.”

Sanya kept her energy in control, refusing to let Reela know the damage her words were doing.

Finally, they came to the end of the trees. Oakshen stretched out before them. A wall just low enough to climb with great difficulty enclosed the meager homes and businesses of thousands who lived in the city. On the far southern end were the farmers with their meager crop fields that, through careful tending, had fed their families and more for generations.

Sanya had studied the history of Kyrro long before deciding to come here, not that it had helped so far. The northern end of Oakshen had transformed completely to fit the army’s agenda. From her perch on the dajrik’s shoulder, she could see everything Tauwin had been responsible for. One catapult looked finished already, with three more in construction. The houses around them had been conjoined, looking like lodging for soldiers, neat and orderly but completely without personality. They acted as a wall that kept the citizens from seeing the northern edge of the city, where the catapults stood just tall enough to peek over the lodging for the soldiers.

They were a menacing sight, but they wouldn’t look that way much longer.

With his target in sight, the dajrik’s rage became even more difficult to contain. Sanya and Reela needed to get off his shoulders. Fearful he would crack her ribs, Sanya decided to risk getting herself down instead of asking his assistance. She wrapped her arms and legs around his arm and slid down. His rough skin scratched her, but she clung tightly and dealt with the pain until she came to his wrist. She wriggled down his fingers and then dropped to the ground.