The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price (15 page)

Now, thanks to Draken, it was a source of pain.

“There’s been no word out of Rella since,” Jarryd said then, picking up his bow.

“What was the situation when you left?”

“Kabri was heavily occupied. We were prisoners in our own home. Three of us snuck out with identical messages. I was the only one that made it off the island. The Langorians followed me for a while, but I managed to find high ground and pick them off.” Taking up his quiver full of arrows, he looked at me. “King Sarin is going to ask you to stay and protect Kael.”

“Is Draken expected to come this far?”

“I don’t know.” Jarryd started moving. I joined him and we headed toward the edge of the arena. “But we should leave for Rella as soon as possible.”

“Sarin has been good to me. I should hear him out first.”

We stopped at the base of the slope where Kya was grazing. She gave Jarryd a good sniff and he ran a hand over her mane. “King Sarin is aware of your permanent obligation to Rella. He should know you can’t stay.”

Jarryd’s words irked me. “I didn’t realize my ‘obligation’ was so well known.”

“The nature of your service was never the secret the Arcana’s wanted it to be. Besides, even if the truth is unknown to Sarin, he’s at least heard the rumor.”

“What rumor?”

“That your mother’s pregnancy was unplanned. That V’loria Troy begged King Raynan for the life of her unborn child, and when that didn’t work she threatened to give you over to Langor. The King feared that greatly. He agreed to your birth on the condition that you were made harmless to the realm. So a Shinree was found to do the binding spell and you were born compelled to defend Rella from her enemies whenever summoned. To do otherwise would bring you instant death.”

“I hadn’t heard that one,” I said awkwardly; shocked by Jarryd’s bluntness.

“It doesn’t matter. You’d come back to Kabri even without the spell.”

“And why is that?”

“It’s the only way you’ll find absolution.”

I took a step back. “Absolution?”

“For the lives you took to stop the war,” he said, still being blunt. “For the husbands and fathers, the sons and brothers that died. If there is any forgiveness to be had for their sacrifice, it would be found on Rella’s shores, not here in Kael.”

With gritted teeth I held back the curse on my tongue. I wanted to let it out and drop the young fool for simply having too much nerve. But impudence had nothing to do with Jarryd Kane’s words. His tone had been too level, too emotionless for disrespect. His face, even now, was completely without spite or disdain. No judgment shone in his eyes. No contempt or resentment strained his voice. His speech, difficult as it had been to hear, hadn’t been about laying blame or condemnation. It hadn’t been to accuse me of his father’s death either, and given what I’d heard of the man’s end, my involvement was likely. Jarryd had merely stated the facts as he saw them, honestly and brutally. And for the life of me I couldn’t understand why. His outright acceptance of those facts, his tolerance of my actions—actions that even I couldn’t tolerate—was so baffling it drained the anger right out of me.

Unclenching my fists, I pushed the balled up message in my pocket. “Let’s go.” I moved around him to grab the reins and the hairs on my arm stood straight up.

Kya’s mane lifted away from her neck.

The air tightened and the grass rippled beneath my boots. “You feel that?”

It rippled again, stronger, and the vibrations shot all the way up my legs.

“Whoa!” Jarryd cried out.

I shoved Kya’s reins in his hand. “Stay here.” Leaving him, I moved back across the field. As I walked, the ground rumbled.

I watched it, listening.

It wasn’t a quake. I knew all too well what a normal shifting of the land felt like, and this wasn’t it. For one thing, the motion was too localized. It was contained within the valley, and only happening in certain spots. The leaves on the trees were still. The grass swayed gently. It was almost as if the
disturbance was deeper, far under the surface. As if the ground wasn’t moving.
It’s not,
I thought.
Something’s moving beneath it.

I sprinted back to Jarryd. “Where’s your horse?”

“I walked. Seemed like a nice day.”

“Not anymore.” The obsidian at my neck began to warm and I stopped. “Get to Kya.” The shard began to glow. “Go as far and as fast as you can and don’t stop.”

Jarryd took a step in my direction. “Ian…what’s going on?”

Power pushed against my skin and I shouted. “Go—now! Or I
will
kill you.”

THIRTEEN

S
prawled out on the grass, spent like a boy who just lifted his first skirt, euphoria wasn’t enough to lessen my failure. I’d been so intent on getting Jarryd to safety that I’d used what little time I had holding back the spell, instead of trying to wrestle control of the magic from Draken’s pet Shinree.

Now, my need to save a single life was going to cost countless more. Because this time, I wasn’t ignorant of what my enemy was doing. I wasn’t removed from it. I was smack in the middle of it, watching countless pairs of long, black claws push their way up through the ground.

Hands and arms followed. Entirely without skin, the appendages were no more than elongated, bleached bones, thick and substantially larger than a man’s. Wriggling and clawing, their skeletal, talon-like hands tore at the grass, widening the holes.

They turned over the field, rapidly. Then, arms uncurling, the overly large, skinless frames heaved themselves up onto solid ground. They unfurled their massive hind legs and stood.

With their backs slightly bowed and their legs jointed the wrong way at the knees, they seemed incapable of rising to their full height—which I was glad of. Most were already a head or two taller than me. A few were twice that.

Arms reaching upward, stretching as if they’d been confined far too long, dirt fell away from their bones and organs began to grow. Two hearts formed side by side and began pumping, shielded beneath a double rib cage. Tissue
and muscle developed and extended swiftly, speeding across exposed bone and layering it with slithering, spreading veins filled with dark blood. Eyes swelled to fill their sockets. Gums shaped and sprouted teeth that matured and lengthened in seconds.

Lastly, came a wrapping of tough, black hide and a heavy, dark pelt.

Then, awareness—I saw it settle into them. Something changed in their posture and, as one, their heads all turned in my direction. The entire arena full of monstrous, towering bulk, wide and tall enough to block out the rising sun behind them, growled in unison; so loud the sound vibrated inside of me.

Jagged teeth chewed at the empty air. Long strings of saliva dripped from their spacious mouths, stretching to hang off the ends of black, fang-like tusks at least six inches long. Bobbing up and down with each snarl, the tusks extended down, curled sharply back up, and ended in points sharp as daggers.

Already sweating over their size, and how absurdly outnumbered I was, my anxiety doubled as I grasped exactly what was surrounding me. For once, I had an opponent with a reputation far worse than mine.

They were called eldring. They were the stuff of childhood tales and nightmares. Deadly enough to have once been considered a plague on the Kaelish countryside. Proliferate enough that it took the combined effort of the Rellan and Kaelish army to wipe them out.

In reality, eldring were no different than any animal trying to survive. When prey was scarce they would pour down out of the mountains in packs, consuming entire herds of sheep and cattle, or anything else foolish enough to be outside after dark. The losses, particularly of children, were so great, that entire villages packed up and moved away. Eventually, the beasts were hunted to extinction. Over three hundred years ago.

I couldn’t have done this,
I thought.
I couldn’t have brought them back to life.

I didn’t have the slightest idea which type of Shinree magic could resurrect ancient creatures out of dust and bone. Apparently, the man casting through me did though. He knew a lot of other things, too. Like how to use me as a conduit.

It was the only explanation. I’d been an instrument, a means for the broken piece to work in concert with the whole. Consuming every morsel of
power in the shard around my neck, he used me to create my own adversaries—and then left me without a drop of magic to fight them with. “Bastard,” I muttered.

Little by little, keeping my movements careful and deliberate, I rose up from the ground. My swords made no noise as I emptied both sheaths.

I didn’t move for a while then. I held position and the whole lot of them sat back on their haunches, issuing faint guttural sounds from low in their throats, and drooling at me as if I were a nice, juicy shank of lamb.

Their ears twitched. I heard the sound a few seconds later. A few more, and Jarryd Kane came riding down over the hill. Spotting the creatures spread out across the field, he slowed Kya to a more cautious advance. He stopped just outside the circle of eldring, slid off Kya’s back, drew his bow and picked a target.

“You all right?” I asked him.

“Fine. Your horse runs fast.” He edged closer. His movement drew a snarl or two, but the creature’s didn’t move. “They don’t seem too interested in attacking. What are they waiting for?”

“Let’s find out.” I started creeping forward and straight away the herd of eldring came to life. A line of five slunk around behind me, low to the ground.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Jarryd warned.

I took a few more steps. In response, the ones in flanking position moved alongside me in a slow, stalking crawl.

“Troy…” Jarryd said, more insistent.

I kept going. The beasts quickened their pace. They closed in.

“Stop!” he shouted.

I halted. So did the pack. “Guess that answers that.”

“They don’t want you to leave. Why?”

“If Draken’s magic user went to all this trouble to corral me…”

“He’s either messing with you,” Jarryd said frankly. “Or…”

“There’s some place else he doesn’t want me to be.” I shared a worried glance with him. “The castle. I need to get out of here.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “But, how exactly are you going to do that?”

I looked at the eldring closest to me. I had a great view of just how long and sharp their claws were. How striking and penetrating their stares.
Surprisingly animated, their lidless, feral eyes were a strange, cloudy blend of orange and yellow, almost the color of a hazy sunset. It was beautiful, really. Moreover, I didn’t see a drop of blind, primal rage. To the contrary, their eyes reflected a clear, noticeable intelligence.

“They’re smart. You can see it. Especially that one,” I said, spotting one whose gaze was different than the rest. Deeper and more focused, this particular, male eldring had an almost mesmerizing cleverness that instantly drew me in.

As I stared at his eyes, the orange started bleeding to red.

The red pulled at me. I took a step toward it.

“This isn’t normal,” Jarryd’s said. His voice startled me. “Eldring were nocturnal. Look at the ones behind you, cowering from the sun. They didn’t hunt in groups this large either.”

Blinking, I focused on him. I pulled my gaze away from the red eyes and my head felt like it was moving through quicksand. “This isn’t a hunt. They’re being controlled.”

“All of them, at once? Can he do that? Is he that good?”

“He’s better than me.”

“Shit.”

“I’ll distract them. You make a run for it. It’s me they want.”

“Yeah,” Jarryd grunted. “For dinner.”

“Not if I can help it. Look,” I said earnestly, “this could all be just a show, a display of strength. But I need to know if Draken is attacking.” I gave Jarryd no time to argue further. Raising both swords I took two bold steps. And nothing happened.

On the third, the first line of eldring in front of me bent over. Lowering their massive forms onto all four legs, they hunkered down, ready to attack, when sunlight streamed over the tops of their heads. It glinted, bouncing back at them, bright and blinding off the steel in my hands, and the eldring in the second row, started shrieking. They recoiled, almost violently. Pain jerking their bodies, the creatures suddenly toppled over, curling into tight, convulsing balls of fur.

I spun around to the eldring guarding me from the rear. They were all facing the sun, yet they were lying nearly flat on the ground with heads low and heavily clawed hands clasped over their unprotected eyes.

“Change of plans,” I said, turning to Jarryd. “I need that sunstone on your cloak.”

“For a spell?” I could hear the frown in his voice. “How do you even know it was taken from a Shinree mine?”

“I can feel it.”

The frown hit his face. “It was my father’s.”

“You’ll get it back. Just take it off and throw it to me.”

“It’s stitched in. I’ll have to drop the bow.”

“Slowly.”

Jarryd lowered his arms. As he went to work on the clasp, I slid a sword into the sheath on my back and checked on the injured creatures. They were still face first on the ground, still working to keep the light out. The rest of the pack were watching me intently, but with heads bowed as if refusing to lift their eyes any higher than my boots.

“How’s it coming?” I asked.

“Got it.” Jarryd threw the clasp and I caught it in my free hand. The edges were smooth against my skin. The base was fastened to a thin layer of bronze, but the metal did nothing to dampen the potency of the aura inside. “Perfect.” Clenching the stone in my fist, I gave Jarryd a stern look. “You need to go.”

“Before you kill me?”

Even with the dry amusement in his voice, I still winced. “I understand if you want to try something else.”

“There is nothing else.” Jarryd’s hard blue gaze was unwavering. “I’ll be fine.”

Fool
, I thought.
He’s not afraid. Not even thinking I might hurt him.

Why anyone would rely on me with such an outward display of stalwart conviction, I had no idea, and I found it infuriating.