The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price (16 page)

“Are we doing this?” he said impatiently.

I gripped the stone tighter. “I don’t know how far this will reach. So ride fast and shut your eyes. Don’t open them and don’t look back. Kya will get you to the road.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

Jarryd’s eyes flashed; he knew I was lying. “I swore to bring you back to Kabri.”

“And you will. But even if this works, there’s no guarantee I’ll get them all. And if you ride back in here like this again you won’t be able to see.”

His anger became confusion. “It’ll be dark?”

“No. It’ll be light.”

FOURTEEN

B
ig, angry magic is never a good thing. Rash, unfamiliar magic was just as bad. Unfortunately, the eldring didn’t give a damn that I’d never channeled a sunstone before. They weren’t going to grant me time to get used to it or show a drop of sympathy that its vibrations made my blood feel like liquid fire.

This has to work. It should work.
My soldier’s bloodline granted me complete control over the blade in my hand. Which meant, in theory, I could do what I wished with it—no matter how crazy the wish. All I needed was a succinct, coherent goal, and the ability to forget that what I wanted from the sunstone wasn’t your typical soldier fare. I also needed to let go of another, potential problem: I had no scripted spell and no time to write one.

Without words to center me, I’d have nothing to keep unwanted thoughts and emotions from seeping in and altering the outcome. I’d be totally relying on the idea itself and my desire to make it happen, which was a little worrisome. I was going to try it anyway though, because at its core, magic was all about belief and intent. If I possessed enough of both I, supposedly, didn’t need anything else.

The ancient scrolls called it though-casting. According to the writings of my ancestors, it was a practice that wasn’t limited to the fabled erudite, or even their most accomplished pupils. All full-blooded Shinree was capable of mastering the process with a couple of years of training.

I had a couple of minutes at best. But I also had an advantage.

Twice in my life I’d pulled off something that could be considered thought-casting, and neither instance was due to tutelage or practice. The first time was born out of simple desperation. I’d come upon a pit rigged with Langorian spears, too well concealed and too wide to jump. With no chance to turn and no time to cast, I simply wanted my horse to pass over the spears unharmed and she did.

I must have wanted it real bad, too. Since not only was she unharmed, Kya remained whole and untouched that day, and every day after. She hadn’t aged or sickened, or had so much as a single fly bite in fifteen years. My objective, my desire, had been that strong and that perfect.

It was just as strong the second time when I unwittingly used the same technique with the Crown of Stones. Only the result was far less perfect.

I glanced at Jarryd. Sitting on Kya’s back at the crest of the hill, steady and alert, arrow drawn, gaze fixed, stance perfect. Despite the lack of uniform he looked every bit the Rellan soldier he chose not to be.

I nodded at him. Silently, I vowed he wouldn’t die the same way as his father.

He nodded back, turned Kya away, and I started clearing my mind.

Generally, discarding the clutter didn’t come easy. I had a lot of it. Nevertheless, I knew so fully what I wanted right now, that my emotions stilled fairly quickly. My thoughts converged even faster. They tapered to a single, solitary pinpoint until there was only the spell. It was in every part of me. Floating in my mind, flowing through my veins, swelling my lungs; I existed for it. I existed because of it. Its outcome was as certain as my next breath.

I let the power go. I raised my sword high and waited.

I caught a glimpse of movement, no more than a blur, before the color of the stone took my vision. Then I couldn’t see a thing. Still, I closed my eyes and dug my boots in. I was ready to ride out the normal surge of euphoria. But expelling the sunstone felt like pushing hot needles out of my skin. There was no pleasure in it, only a suffocating swell of prickling heat and the relief that came when it was gone.

A brief bout of weakness followed. Directing the spell onto me, or my belongings, required only a minimal gift of my energy. From the eldring, it took without mercy. I could hear them collapsing. When the noise stopped,
I rushed forward into the middle of the pack, and the field exploded in a blinding sea of radiance.

Heat and light were everywhere. It was like standing inside an unending bolt of lightning. Even with my eyes closed the vivid glow broke through. The extreme warmth touched everything. I’d focused the spell on the eldring, but it was too great to be contained and the overflow was trickling out into the air, the ground, the hilt of my sword. Behind their lids, my eyes hurt. My skin baked like I’d been exposed to the high summer sun for days.

Even so, I was getting off easy compared to the eldring. The sound of their pain reverberated in my bones. The smell of their smoldering hair and melting flesh was rank.

It bothered me, yet not as much as it should have. I didn’t feel sympathy for their suffering. I felt pride. It was morbid and disturbing, and unequivocally shameful. But their suffering was my accomplishment. By amplifying the glare off my blade and stretching it over the entire field, I’d turned the sun into a weapon. It was unlike anything I had ever done before and I did it without an actual spell. It was a moment worth gloating over.
Later,
I thought.

I still had to get out of the valley, through a pack of wounded eldring without the use of my eyes. I couldn’t risk opening them. Not until the light dimmed. And since eldring weren’t truly the monsters they appeared, but animals—ferocious, ill-made, flesh-eating, nocturnal animals that didn’t need eyes to hunt—they could find their prey by scent alone. Probably, they already had. Probably, the creatures were dragging their hulking, bleeding bodies toward me across the torn grass, angry and hurting and knowing I was the cause. It wasn’t a reassuring thought.

Neither was the idea of putting myself in Fate’s hands. I didn’t want to trust him to guide me across the field. The old bastard was a fickle, unsympathetic god who, time and again, had shown that he didn’t particularly like me.

I was just hoping he was in a good mood.

Okay,
I thought. I took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out.
I can do this.

I just need to stay calm.

It’s only a hundred paces
.
A hundred paces and I’ll clear the valley.

I stuffed the sandstone in my pocket.

It’s not that far. I can do this.

Tightening my grip on the gleaming sword, I took off.

The cool rush of air felt good on my hot skin. To be doing something instead of waiting to be eaten felt good, too. But as much as I was trying not to step on any of them, or to smell like anything, or to breathe too loud, I wasn’t exactly being stealthy. With the sword slapping against my back, my boots thumping against the churned up ground, and the sweat pouring off me, I was definitely drawing attention.

I felt the ground angle slightly upward.
Almost there.

At the base of the slope I started up, and a wet snarl hit my ear.

Half a breath later, the weight of a small mountain smashed into me and I was airborne. The gleaming sword flew from my hands. Massive furry arms wrapped around me and we hit the ground rolling.

Sliding and tumbling, held tight by the creature, its crushing weight drove the air out of me. I could taste the mold and dirt on its pelt. Its body stunk of blood and decay. With each rotation, my sword jabbed into my back, a cold, bony tusk scraped the side of my neck, a wet muzzle brushed my ear; filling it with slobbery, anxious growls.

The growls ended in a sharp
yelp,
as we struck something hard, and stopped. The beast lifted up, slightly. It shook, like a dog, shedding some momentary discomfort. Then it got off me with a grunt that was full-out satisfaction. The pressure abruptly gone from my chest, I sucked in deep, wheezing breaths. Every one of them hurt.

Stifling a groan—and the powerful itch to open my eyes—I rolled onto my stomach. I had no idea which way to go. I picked a direction and started crawling, and a pair of thick claws seized my ankles and started dragging me back.

I fought, clutching at the grass. I had a brief thought of going for one of the knives tucked in my braces, but that notion, and every other coherent thought vanished as the beast flipped me over onto my back, jumped on my chest and poked the four, bony protrusions of its clawed hand clean through my jacket, into my shirt, and down into the meat of my right shoulder.

Flesh ripped. Muscles tore. Veins opened and began emptying. Blood ran out of me like juice draining from a piece of fruit, and still the eldring burrowed in deeper. It pushed; smoothly through layers of sinew and muscle; with effort through cartilage and bone.

With a quick yank the claws retracted. There was a strange, brief moment of relief. It ended as the knife-like claws raked slowly down the length of my arm. Skin shredded, but after the initial shock, I scarcely noticed. The nerves there couldn’t admit to any more pain.

I faded a moment then woke to the distant
drip-drip
of saliva on my neck. Eager breath that smelled like festering meat blew across my face. A clawed hand closed over my throat.

Eyes shut, as I waited for the fangs to sink in, I prayed that Death had swift feet and would come to claim me soon. In all the times I’d imagined dying, I’d never considered being eaten alive as a possibility, and I wanted no time to ponder it now.

Instead of ripping into me though, the eldring did the unexpected. It spoke.

The words were Shinree. The voice was familiar.

The man who talked through Taren Roe was speaking through the eldring.

No
, I thought dimly.
He’s not speaking. He’s casting.

I tried to translate, to focus on the rhythm of the sounds. The same six phrases were repeating. I just couldn’t quit my ragged breathing long enough to hear him clearly.

The chant continued. The eldring let go of my throat and sat back on my legs. It didn’t move after that. It wasn’t restraining me in any way, or trying to carve me up. Being inhabited must have completely overridden its animal mind.
But for how long?

Taking the only chance I was going to get, I raised my left arm off the ground. I reached over, across my body, going for the knife in the brace on my right wrist. It was only a slight movement. A brief jostle as I took hold of my injured arm and adjusted the angle. But what remained of the limb was a sopping, twitching mess and I might as well have been ripping it off.

Gasping and trembling, I fell back to the ground. I blew the air out through my chattering teeth a few times. Then I clenched them and tried again. Fighting pain and the dragging, deadweight of my body, as I struggled to lift up, it came to me that the light on the other side of my lids wasn’t so bright anymore. My spell was fading.

I risked a peek. I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the blood, gore, and exposed bone of my arm. The second was the eldring sitting on top of me with pieces of my skin stuck to the edges of its claws.

I shut out the sight and focused on my goal.

Sliding two fingers into the brace and down inside the inner sheath, I found the knife and pulled it out. Gripping the handle, I stared into the creature’s vacant, red gaze and hoped that the magic user on the other side could see me as I let out a rage-filled, triumphant scream—that he could feel me, as I reached up and shoved the entire blade though the side of the eldring’s thick, furry neck.

I ripped the knife out and stuck it in again, and again. I stabbed as fierce and as fast, as many times, and in as many places, as I could. And the eldring didn’t flinch.

At some point, the voice coming out of it ceased. Its black pelt tore, but I didn’t ease up. I went on, goring and slashing, even as its insides emptied out all over me. As dark, red blood pumped from severed veins, turning its fur red and encasing my hand and arm like a glove, I kept hacking. Only when the butchered carcass hunched over and fell off me did I finally let the blade slip from my trembling hand.

I attempted to move then, to sit, but too much of me was coloring the ground. It was easier to lie in the wet, warm grass. Night was falling and it was quiet.

A hazy figure hovered over me and I groped for the knife. “Ian,” it said. “Relax. It’s me.”

A face came into focus. “Jarryd,” I breathed. “I told you not to come back.”

“Good thing I didn’t listen.” Bending down, he pulled at me. “Come on, get up.”

“Can’t.”

“You have to.”

“The eldring…”

“Are all dead. Gods,” he groaned. “You’re a mess.”

“The castle…?”

“Never mind that now. How much of this blood is yours?”

“Too fucking much.” For some reason that was funny and I panted my way through a laugh. “Way too fucking much.”

“I can see that.” Frowning, Jarryd lifted his tunic over his head. Pulling a dagger he divided his shirt into long, wide strips. He started tearing cloth away from the wound. “Sorry, but I think you need a new jacket.”

“It’s okay,” I muttered. “It smelled like swamp anyway.”

Jarryd grinned a little, but it was taut and fleeting as he set out on the unenviable task of tending my wounds. He tried to be careful. But nervousness and a lack of experience made his moves clumsy. While he packed cloth on both sides of my shoulder and wrapped my arm clear to the wrist, it was hard to stay lucid. It was only his incessant talking that kept me awake and breathing through it all; an act that was made acutely difficult by my matching set of broken ribs.

By the end, as Jarryd awkwardly maneuvered my arm into a make-shift sling, worry had washed the color from his skin, and I was in agony.

He blew out an anxious breath and wiped the sweat from his brow. “How’s that?”