The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price (27 page)

In a heartbeat the hill behind us was lost in shadow. The trailhead disappeared next, the bank leading down to the brook, then the horses.

In seconds, all that was left of the glen was a swiftly diminishing circle of light, with us in the middle.

TWENTY THREE

“D
o something,” Malaq said. He pivoted around. “It’s trying to hem us in.”

“It already has. And I can’t cast with you here, Malaq. You know that.”

“Where the hell would you like me to go? Through that?” He pointed at the dark fog pouring over his bags on the ground. “Not fucking likely.”

As it pushed closer, I growled at him. “You’re running out of time.”

“I’m not leaving you here. If I go, you go.”

“Damn it, Malaq, I need you practical right now, not noble.”

“I’m afraid you’re not getting either.” He gestured again at the cloud bearing down on us. Faster and faster, it began pulling itself together and apart, bunching like dough in a baker’s hands. “Whatever is happening…it’s happening now.”

As the mist continued squeezing and expanding, pieces tore away. They drifted over the ground, misshapen and vague. Then they divided further. Twisting and lengthening, compressing and forming, the batches of gloom molded together.

We were suddenly surrounded by groups of tall, featureless, man-like figures.

Lacking a scrap of detail or clothing of any kind, the beings were without faces. They had no skin or hair, or any discernible texture whatsoever. Their bodies were solid darkness, indistinct, willowy, and ghost-like.

I watched them close in. Eight. Twelve. Sixteen. Twenty.

“I know what this is,” I said, losing track; their numbers were growing too fast to count. “They’re shadows.”

“Shadows of what?”

“Us.”

“Sorry, Troy. Last time I checked, I only had one.”

“At any given moment, yes. But how many do you think you make in a day?”

I felt Malaq’s glance. “So they’re all coming? Every shadow I’ve ever made is coming to kill me?”

“Not all of them. It depends on how long Draken’s magic user has been gathering them up. If he’s tracked us since we left Kael then…” I slid him a look.

“Gods, but I hate magic.” Malaq drew himself up. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I read about this spell once, but it’s old. Really old.”

“I’m guessing old means bad. Can we kill them?”

“Let’s find out.” I rushed forward. Cutting through the center of the two nearest black silhouettes, my blades went in easily. Extracting the weapons left gaping holes and sent splashes of red, misty tendrils spurting into the air.

“Blood,” Malaq said happily.

The sprays of red faded to black and the holes closed.

He groaned. “Now what?”

I raised my swords to try again—and took a startled step back. The blood on the ends of my blades was moving. Darkening and swirling, the stains wrapped around, joined together, and slithered up the length of steel. “What the hell?”

I shook both weapons. The black threads fell off one sword, but clung to the other. Swiftly dancing up and over the hilt, mist the color of night swept cold across my hand. It crept onto my fingers and they began to tingle and ache. My skin, where it touched the sword, burned.

I tried again to jiggle the tendrils loose, but a heavy, lifeless sensation had settled into my hand. It deepened. I went numb from the tips of my fingers to my wrist, and the sword slipped out of my grasp.

The darkness sloughed off me then. Clinging to the weapon as it fell to the ground, it curled away from the cold steel like a wisp of smoke and drifted off; leaving me to stare down in horror at my frozen, black skin.

I felt no pain. I couldn’t feel anything. It was like my hand wasn’t even there.

Behind me, Malaq let out a triumphant roar. I turned just as Natalia separated a willowy head from its body. The figure became two pieces. The pieces broke apart into flimsy wisps and disintegrated.

He decapitated two more. They disappeared and didn’t reform.

Malaq had found their weak spot.

I raised my remaining sword. With so many targets, and Malaq’s strategy, I felled six in rapid succession. Our opponents were slow and weaponless. All I had to do was slice off their heads quick enough to keep the blood from sticking to my sword.

There was a catch, of course. No matter how quickly we worked, they kept coming. The shadows were multiplying faster than we could kill them. Some crept between us. Others pressed in, tightening their circle. The rest blended together, uniting into a large, shapeless mass that was surging toward us like the great swell of an ocean.

The waves flowed closer and my moves turned careless.

I had no room to maneuver, no time to aim.

Malaq let out a yell as the undulating black enveloped his boots. Tendrils crawled up his chest, wrapping around his arms. They spider webbed across his body; pulling him to his knees even as they turned black.

I called out to him as I cut into the swell. I swung madly to reach him, but more and more strands of misty, dark blood was spilling up my sword, and the puddle of blackness was creeping rapidly up Malaq’s neck.

Slinking across his face, the shadow inched higher. It closed over the top of Malaq’s head, and he was gone. Only one hand remained visible. Rigid and black, incapable of movement, it stuck straight out, like he was reaching for me.

I dropped my sword. Calling to the stones at my wrist, I summoned the obsidian and lunged into the blackness. My fingers closed over his. As the icy strands began to flow over me, the remaining shadows moved in quickly, rolling in from all sides, dripping down from above to join the mass, and I started casting.

With no thought but to save Malaq, I used the diamond on my wrist to momentarily link his essence to mine. The hematite became a shield to
protect him from being drained by the spell, (an utterly desperate move that had no valid reason to work), the citrine to stop our hearts, and the garnet to infuse us with a big jolt of stamina to start them again. I had no plan for the obsidian. I simply felt better with its energy pulsing through me; more confident.

Considering I was about to ask magic to bring us as close to death as we could go, I needed the boost.

I threw the magic out. There was no enjoyment in it. Not as I was, on my knees, bitter cold, with blackness thick as tar climbing up my legs. My hand, clasped with Malaq’s, was frozen and stiff. My bones ached with the piercing cold. I could feel my heart slowing.

My gut said that if the shadows believed we were already dead they would stop trying to make us that way. And it looked like I was right. As Malaq and I grew lifeless and unimportant, the bulging, shadowy mound reacted. It poured down off our bodies like a black tide, gathering up its errant pieces.

When it had them all, it divided again, into four, thick, bloated, man-like shapes.

Slowly, the shapes glided away in retreat. Light returned to the clearing. It didn’t help much though. I was getting what I wished for at the brook: the cold to close over me, the nothingness. Light was pointless now that I was dying.

Except—

There was the blurred form of a horse and rider on approach. As it grew nearer, I tried to focus on it, but in the forefront were the four remaining shadows. They were headed back toward the forest, dissolving, and I was afraid to let them go. I kept thinking:
if they escape with the life they stole, would we ever get it back?

Jarryd slid off his horse and ran toward us. My voice trembled as I forced out a word, “Head.” I wasn’t sure he’d even heard me, but Jarryd didn’t miss a step. He threw down his bow, took up Malaq’s abandoned sword, and started swinging.

TWENTY FOUR

“H
ere.” Jarryd pushed a cup of something warm in my hand. The steam rose up, found its way into my nose and the smell made my mouth water.

“Thanks,” I said. “Looks great.”

Sitting on the ground across from me, blowing the heat off his meal, Jarryd looked over the rim of his cup and inclined his head in the direction of the man stretched out on the ground between us. “Any change?”

I looked at Malaq’s sickly pale skin. I watched his chest move under the blanket in little, shallow breaths, and I knew he was alive. But he hadn’t moved. Since I woke up two days ago, crawled over and sat down beside him, neither had I.

“No,” I said. “He’s still the same.”

“I skinned an extra rabbit. Found a couple eggs, a patch of strawberries. I figured he’d need to get his strength back when he comes to.”

“Good idea,” I said. But I needed to say more. Jarryd had taken out the last of the shadows, hauled Malaq and I up across our horses, and found a place to make camp. He’d kept us warm, fed, and safe, for days, while I sat on my ass in a fog of guilt, praying for Malaq to regain consciousness. I’d left everything to Jarryd. And it had taken a toll. Visible, dark circles ringed his blue eyes. His braid was half undone and pieces were sticking out all over. Dirt darkened his hands and streaked his torn tunic, as well as the crumpled skin of his swollen, scarred face. “You look like hell,” I added.

“Me?” He flashed his usual, uneven grin. “Seriously, Ian,” he said, the expression fading. “Get some sleep. I got this.”

“I can’t.” I knew too well what sleep would bring. “It’s my fault he’s like this.”

“The fuck if it is. You’re the reason he’s alive.”

“What I did, Jarryd, casting against the shadows with Malaq so close…it was irresponsible. Dangerous.” I wrapped my hands as tight as I could around the mug, soaking up the warmth. “What if he never wakes up? What if something went wrong? I had no idea what I was doing, trying to protect him from being drained by a spell. Gods, what was I thinking? My magic kills people, it doesn’t save them.”

Jarryd didn’t reply to that. “What about you? Are you feeling any better?”

“Some,” I said, sparing him the truth. He didn’t need to know that as life came back to everything the shadows touched it hurt like hell. My muscles and joints throbbed. My insides were trembling from a cold that I couldn’t shake. Not to mention I was so far beyond tired I wasn’t sure there was a word for it.

“Can I ask you something?” Jarryd said. “Before I left, Neela told me about that.” He gestured at the black shard around my neck. “After what happened with the Crown of Stones, why do you think King Raynan gave you a piece of it?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. I was a mess that day. Angry. Not thinking clearly. He handed it to me and I took it.”

“They say you asked to be locked up.”

“I did. I begged for
Kayn’l
.”

“And?”

“The King refused. He didn’t want his personal weapon tainted by drugs. He said if I wanted to stop using magic I had to find a way that wouldn’t interfere with my duty to protect Rella. He suggested I try a tincture of amethyst shavings.”

“What the hell is that?” Jarryd grinned.

“This one tutor that King Raynan hired for me as a child, he told me about a time when Rellans believed they could glean a bit of magic for themselves. They used potions, salves, even teas, made from ground bits of stones, thinking they had certain medicinal properties.”

“Did they?”

I shrugged. “My mother used to say that belief could make anything so.”

“Why amethyst? What did it do?”

“It was said to curb addiction. Wives would put it in their husband’s food, hoping to calm their drinking or gambling. Don’t know how they didn’t taste it. It’s a nasty mix.”

“Wait…” He looked disgusted, and excited. “You actually tried it?”

“I was desperate. I would have tried anything.”

“So it didn’t work?”

“Oh, it worked all right. I didn’t drink or gamble once the entire week. I was too fucking sick. I couldn’t even get out of bed.”

Jarryd laughed. “Sorry. I suppose it wasn’t funny.”

“No,” I chuckled. “It wasn’t.” My thoughts turned back to the crown. “It was an innocent gesture, King Raynan breaking off the shard. Symbolic, I guess. He had no idea how strong the crown was. He certainly didn’t know the piece would stay linked.”

“I’m not so sure about that. The King had a Shinree oracle at the castle.”

“Most kings have oracles. Half of them double as concubines.”

“I don’t think that was the case. I heard she was a child. Very gifted for her age. King Raynan kept her hidden away somewhere in the castle. He would disappear for hours visiting her. He never spoke of the visions she gave him. But one night, when Neela was young, he confessed he never had any true affection for Aylagar. That he already loved one dead woman, why waste time with another destined for the same fate.”

“What are you saying? That he knew Aylagar would die?”

Jarryd leaned closer. “The castle guards have been on constant high alert for the last three years. Patrols go out twice a day looking for signs of an invasion. Last winter, new guard posts were established at the border with Langor. Right after that he ordered the castle to be searched. He was looking for where you hid the Crown of Stones.”

“I never told him it was in the castle.”

“Exactly. We all thought the King was going mad. But now I think he saw this. Draken. The crown. Everything.”

“Even if he did, oracle magic can’t be trusted that implicitly. The choices we make every day alter the future.”

“But maybe that’s what King Raynan was trying to do. He was trying to alter the future
away
from what he saw by breaking the crown.”

“It’s not broken,” I said. “It’s…” I paused. Jarryd’s words prompting a change of perspective, I thought back to the swamp. Taren said the circle was seamless and whole…until I found it. “That’s it.” I looked at Jarryd in shock. “Missing a piece must cause some sort of disruption in the crown’s power. Some decrease in strength.”

“Then I was right. King Raynan did know. He saw the crown falling into enemy hands. He knew that breaking it would diminish its magic.”

“It does seem that way.”

“And he gave you the shard to try and thwart Draken’s plans. But if that’s true,” Jarryd went on, “putting the shard and the crown back together…”