The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price (7 page)

“Yes,” I growled, cutting him off. “Yes, I loved her…you fucking bastard.”

“Nice,” he purred happily. “You loved her and you killed her anyway.”

I closed my eyes against the look on Taren’s face. But I couldn’t block out the slow, satisfied laugh the man was pushing out of her throat. The sound was an unmistakable show of approval, a genuine release of pleasure at my expense. It felt like the point of a sword pushing into my skin. And the harder the laugh came, the further the sword pushed in; twisting and turning, digging at old wounds and making them new again, stripping away the layers and leaving me with only the raw, ugly memories.

His unrelenting, cruel amusement did something else as well. It kindled an unintentional fire deep within me. The flames burned hot and fast. Igniting the very things his spell had worked so hard to dampen, wrath came around again. Aggression was set loose.

I felt a
crack
as his spell on me shattered.

No longer restrained, emotion and intent moved through me like blood flowing to a sleeping limb and I launched myself forward, striking Taren hard across the jaw. I hit her twice more, driving her down into the mire. “How many pieces do I have to cut her in before you shut up? How many?” I yanked her up.

Taren’s head whipped around. She licked her torn lip and her red eyes glowed. “Kill the bitch if you like. But it changes nothing—nothing!” he cried out. “You
will
turn the ground red with blood again, Troy. I promise you. It’s what we are.”

Taking the dagger from my belt, I grabbed a handful of Taren’s muddy hair. I shoved the blade under her chin and ripped it across her throat. “It’s not what I am.”

SIX

T
he grass crunched with my every step. It was an odd noise, out of place. It wouldn’t be in another month. Cold came early to the mountains.

Yet the black, dry condition of the woods had nothing to do with winter, or the rapidly approaching night. The bare, lifeless branches, the curled, brittle underbrush and numerous carcasses of birds and other small creatures littering the forest floor weren’t made by natural means. They were dead because of me.

I wasn’t shocked. Losing his vessel in Taren’s death had done nothing whatsoever to hold my Shinree enemy at bay. He’d seized my magic three more times before I found my way out of the swamps, and again shortly after I crossed over into Kael. Since then, as I traveled the mountain paths and moved deeper into the kingdom, his intrusions had grown farther apart.

I would have been grateful for that, except as the time between spells lengthened, the more my appetite for them grew. So far, I’d been able to resist casting on my own. But fighting the urge was getting painfully hard. When it became impossible and I couldn’t hold out anymore, I wouldn’t be able to shift the blame to my enemy. Whatever was drained, whatever died when I cast, it would be entirely on my shoulders.

It is now
, I thought soberly, looking at the death and desolation that surrounded me. The spell may not have been my doing, but it was mine. I was the reason that Kya was the only other living thing in the woods besides me.
It was my fault she was wandering alongside the trail, nose to the ground, searching for something edible that wasn’t here.

I’d killed breakfast. Again.

It was her only concern, the lack of green vegetation, and I wished I could be like her. I wished that the forest that died to feed my spell meant nothing. That my stomach didn’t turn at the sight of so many tiny, desiccated bodies at my feet, at the hordes of industrious insects and worms feasting on their shriveled remains. It would be simpler if I could ride on without caring that there was a village nearby.

Because riding on meant finding out what I might have done to them.

There are children there
, I thought, imagining their little forms bent and shrunken, their skin thinned and wrinkled like fruit left too long in the sun.

If I killed children I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t live with not knowing either. I certainly couldn’t go on like I was, leaving a trail of death behind me while some rampant Shinree helped himself to my magic. I had to stop him.

How exactly, I wasn’t sure. I had nothing to go on but a vague description and a voice I didn’t know. Neither would get me even a halfway decent tracking spell. The only workable lead I had was the tavern where Taren was hired. I knew the place. I knew the kind that went there. They responded to money and fists, and I was glad to give them both if it got me answers.

It wasn’t without risk though. The Wounded Owl was in a city of thousands. If I was forced to let loose a spell while I was there, the worms would be gorging on much larger meals than squirrels and mice.

The only way it could work was if I got in and out quick, between spells. Yet, betting lives on my enemy sticking to his recent pattern didn’t sit well. Finding a way to deflect or resist him would make going into the city a little less hazardous, but I hadn’t managed it yet. I’d thought about it. Each time I was forced to cast I burned with the urge to defy him. Since I hadn’t—not once—I’d come to the painful conclusion that I didn’t want to. Having magic in me again felt too damn good.

Ashamed, I started revisiting the few options I had for fighting back. I wasn’t fond of any of them.

Ingesting
Kayn’l
was the most obvious. It would completely impede my ability to cast (unwillingly or otherwise), yet it had side effects I couldn’t
afford. Mainly, if I wanted to actually find and stop my attacker, it would help if I was coherent.

Regularly channeling the obsidian on my own would keep the stone depleted, thereby, lowering his opportunity to use it. Keeping the workings small would lessen the harm to others, too. But the harm caused to me, by indulging so frequently, would be immeasurable. I was already sinking into a hole I might never get out of again. Deliberately throwing myself in deeper wasn’t smart.

That left, disposing of the shard. With no stones in my possession my enemy would be cut off from my magic. Unfortunately, so would I, which would leave me defenseless when I found him.

The best way to fend him off would be to keep him out entirely. I could craft a barricade or shield of some sort, but he’d likely be expecting that. And depending on what stone he was using, it would be hit or miss whether I could counteract it or not. He was also too cunning to be stymied so easily. To keep him busy I would likely need more than one spell.

Wait
, I thought,
more than one.

Accessing my abilities, forcing the magic in, shaping it…

I started pacing, thinking.
That’s three different types of persuasion, three different spells.

He’d have to cast them separately, in stages. And that means—

I stopped moving. “A lag.”

It would be brief. I’d have less than a handful of moments, the time it would take for him to make clear his intent for one spell and speak the words for the next. But if I could do it, if I could regain control of the aura after he pushed it in me, I could pull the whole damn thing out from under him.

I could limit the loss of life. Show him I’m not as easy to handle as he thought.

Brazenly opposing the man’s plans might also make him angry enough to force a show down.
And if I can bring him out of hiding, I can kill him.

Just like that I had a plan. And the first shred of confidence I’d felt in a while.

It put a bit of pep in my step as I whistled for Kya. “Let’s go!” I hollered. After a brief, terse glance, she went back to sniffing the dead woods. “We don’t have time for this.” I lapsed into Shinree and barked firmly at her. “Intae’a!” The old language wasn’t spoken much, having died long before I
learned it. Yet there were one or two words that just felt right saying. Like the term of affection I used with Kya. Something about the sound of it guaranteed me attention. And not just with horses.

Sauntering obediently in my direction now, I met the mare halfway. I put a hand on the saddle, and as I swung a leg over, I caught a glimpse of the small, dark crystal peeking out from the neckline of my shirt. Cold and harmless, rundown from whatever spell I just cast, the shard looked nothing at all like a fragment from the deadliest weapon in Shinree history. For that matter, outwardly, the crown itself betrayed nothing of its true nature. Yet, it had crowded my veins with what felt like endless magic, granting me a range of power and abilities far beyond what I was born with, far more than I knew what to do with too, or how to control. A single use of the Crown of Stones and I changed the world.

The only thing that went in my favor that day was that the crown fell into my hands and not the Langorians. If they had gained access to all that magic, they would have painfully persuaded a Shinree to work it for them. The resulting damage would have been infinitely more wide spread. With the crown in their possession, no army could have stopped Langor from dominating Rella, and every other land within reach.

Anyone who wielded it could make themselves King.

A chill took me at the thought.

Another ran up my spine me as I quoted my new enemy. “Anyone with such power as you should be King.”

I thought of Taren then, talking about the circle being broken. How she hinted at wanting the obsidian shard to fix it. Still, if her mission was to retrieve the shard, she had multiple opportunities. Instead, her employer interrogated me. He mocked me, plagued me with questions. He asked about the war, about Aylagar, about the Crown of Stones.

He said I didn’t hide it very well.

Struggling, I tried to recall every word of our conversation. I didn’t remember saying anything that would reveal the location of the crown. But the man hadn’t asked either. He’d focused on getting me to reveal deeper things. Things like what I feared and what I loved. Like where my mind and heart were before, and after, I channeled the crown. He wanted in my head and he got there.

If it was truly the artifact he was after, I’d given him a good place to start looking.

Not only that, I was too far away to stop him.

Far, far away,
like Taren said.

I crushed the reins in my hands.
I have to go back.

I had to make sure the crown was still where I left it.

Only, what if I had it all wrong? What if I lead him straight to it? Going back to Kabri might be exactly what he wanted. It certainly wasn’t what I wanted.

Ten years had done nothing to diminish the reasons I left.

Situated just off the southern mainland of Rella, the island city of Kabri was the seat of power for the entire realm. It was where I was born and lived as a child. It was where my mother died and where I caught my first real glimpse of the large scale brutality the Langorians were capable of. It was where I surrendered Aylagar’s body to her husband, King Raynan Arcana, and where I hid the Crown of Stones.

I should have left it where I found it. I should have never brought it back.

I’d thought that many times. That I should have buried the accursed thing in the sand and let it return to whatever hell it came from. But I’d needed a way to explain, and to cement my grounds for punishment. Torture, exile, slavery, even execution would have been fair. Instead, I got the King staring at me like he wasn’t surprised, as though he’d always known that one day I would slip and rain destruction down on everyone.

After relieving me of duty, he firmly suggested I leave the city. Tensions among the citizens were high and the King was worried I might be strung up by the families of the men that didn’t come home. It was a purely selfish concern. If I died, Rella would be without the protection of the magic user he had worked so hard to groom.

King Raynan’s last order was that I put the artifact somewhere safe. I argued for destroying it, throwing it in the ocean—anything. But he wanted it available should its power ever be needed again and I was in no position to make demands.

Thinking on it now, I probably misinterpreted his words. He likely hadn’t meant for me to leave the Crown of Stones in the catacombs under his castle, inside Aylagar’s tomb. But at the time, I was the one person the crown needed
to be safe from. I found it. I used it. I alone knew the wonders and the dangers, and that was the sole reason I chose the hiding place I did. Because if I were ever tempted to claim the crown’s magic for myself, if I ever thought to use its power again, I would have to go back there, open Aylagar’s crypt and reach my hand in. I would have to touch her dead body, face her and what I did, and no amount of magic was worth that. Not to me anyway.

But to another, lured by the promise of supreme power, it would be a small thing to defile the tomb of a dead, forgotten Queen.

I gave Kya a kick and started her forward. If I was right, and the crown was in danger, forward was the wrong direction. But the kingdom of Rella was weeks away and I was too close to Kael to turn around without checking the Wounded Owl first. It was the last place my Shinree enemy was seen. Someone there might know his identity or his whereabouts.

Pushing the mare, the ground sped by in a blur of stripped, spindly thickets and scattered piles of dead wildlife. Leafless branches hung down over the path as it dipped into little hollows and rose up over gentle sloping mounds of parched, black grass. As the sun set deeper, the path flattened out. As it widened into a genuine road, I hit a straight patch, and up ahead, dust gathered in the waning light. I peered into it and the dark shape of a single horseman took form.

I came to a halt and drew a sword. After Taren, I wasn’t taking any chances.

The man pushed through the cloud and I noticed his approach was fast.

Sword ready, I held position. I assumed the rider would swerve off when he caught sight of me. Instead, releasing a high-pitched cry of panic, he jerked like mad on the reins, bringing his mount to a loud, skidding stop less than a hands length away from Kya’s right flank.

A spray of dead leaves shot up as high as my knee. The dust rose higher.