The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (41 page)

Draegon gasped as his body twisted and contorted. Bones snapped, blood streamed from open wounds as the mage's limbs folded in on themselves. Draegon continued to compress and fold into himself, shrinking until a few seconds later, nothing remained of the leader of the Order of the Sanguine Crystal.

A moment later, the uncontrollable torrent of stimuli that had come with his newly granted hearing vanished. The silence of his deafness smothered him just as he was finally allowed to slip into blissful unconsciousness.

31

Cailix stood on the shore, oblivious to the oncoming tide, hurling massive balls of bloodfire out at the ships in the bay. The rush of power that surged through her was intoxicating. She didn't just feel in control, she felt invincible—not only did she control her fate, but she could affect the fate of others. This was what true power felt like, and she didn't want to let go of that feeling.

She watched with detached focus, like an observer watching a game of stones, noting the positions of all the pieces in play. Her opponents' pieces were pirate and mercenary ships controlled by blood mages, but the game board had obeyed her every command…until they arrived.

At first they looked like a flock of gulls, circling the ships, awaiting their next meal. Then the shapes grew larger and the sun glinted off their bronze hulls.
 

The briene? Here?
she thought, still throwing as many fireballs as she could, consuming the blood of the gathered livestock at an astounding rate. If she didn't stop soon, the island would die of starvation rather than at the hands of the Order.
Sheep can be replaced
, she rationalized, hoping she was right.

"What are the briene doing here? And why are they fighting the blood mages?" Cailix asked aloud.

"What, dear?" Orla asked, standing amid the gathered council of leaders of the island. They huddled behind a livestock fence, watching in terror as sheep after sheep exploded into a bloody mist, caught fire, and then soared out over the coastline into the naval battle beyond.

"Nothing," Cailix said.

The blood mages answered her volleys in kind, returning a salvo of a dozen fireballs for each of hers. She stood knee deep in water and the coastline was nothing but sand and shells for hundreds of yards up the slope, so most of the fireballs landed nearby with little effect.

Fatigue gripped her, urged to her to give up and sit down and rest. Her mind and soul were ready to quit and she had nothing left. Her fingers and toes tingled and her head was light. She didn't have much time left, so she was going to have to make her last attack count.

With one stroke she consumed all of the blood of the remaining livestock.
 

So… much… power!

She could barely contain it all, feeling she might burst from the amount of power that flowed through her. Yet she craved more, she
needed
more.

She channeled all of that power into the water at her feet. The water swirled and churned, then lifted over her head. The higher the wave grew, the more water it sucked up in its wake. At her command, the wave rose and rolled backwards, out into the bay, taking all of the water underneath with it.

The tidal wave rolled higher and higher, churned faster and more violently, leaving nothing but barren shoreline in its wake. It crashed into the first of the pirate vessels, ripping it apart, rending it into nothing but broken planks and splintered masts.

It hit another ship, then another, and another, until the wave finally crested out in the ocean, with an ear-splitting crash that made a thunderclap sound like a whisper. She hoped that somewhere amid the flotsam lay the body of her nemesis, and, inexplicably, her father.

But hope was for fools, and she knew it. Without seeing his body, she wouldn't truly believe he was dead, and she wouldn't be satisfied. Father or not, she meant to see him die, at a time of her choosing, in a way that
she
controlled. She wasn't going to let Anderis win.

Thoughts of killing Anderis faded along with her consciousness. Her power spent, she dropped to her knees and fell into the returning tide.

Cailix awoke in Orla's arms, the woman spooning a thick broth into her mouth, whispering encouraging words in her ear.

"Orla," Cailix said after taking in a big gulp of the soup.

"Just call me Momma, dear," Orla said, rocking Cailix back and forth like a babe. "You rest now; you must be exhausted."

"So tired," Cailix managed between sips of the broth.

"You exploded a whole herd of sheep, plus a few cows and all the pigs on the island. I imagine that has to take its toll," Orla said with a smile. "Not to mention all those fireballs and that wave."

"What happened? I remember the wave crashing, but that's it." Cailix sat up, finally taking in her surroundings. She was sitting on the grass at the top of the shoreline, looking down at the wreckage coming ashore. It littered the beach as far as she could see in both directions.

"You saved the island," came a deep voice that seemed familiar, but she couldn't place it.

Then Colin stepped into view, smiling at her. It was that simple farm-boy who seemed infatuated with her.

"The boy's right," another voice said, approaching from behind. This voice she recognized; it belonged to Woss. "I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I suppose I have to start believin' in fairytales, boogey men, and dragons now, too."

Woss seemed genuinely flustered by the events. Witnessing a magical display like that had challenged everything he believed in, Cailix realized. But he also seemed like a strong man, and he would eventually get over it, she thought.

"Were there any survivors?" Cailix asked. "Did any of the mages come ashore?"

"No, dear, no survivors that we've seen," Orla said in a comforting tone, trying to spoon more soup into her.

Cailix tried to stand up, failed, and then managed the feat on the second attempt.

"There's a chance he survived then," she said softly, not realizing everyone else was listening.

"Who, dear?" Orla asked.

"The man who kidnapped me, tried to enslave me, tried to kill me, and tried to kill everyone on this island. My father."

At that, everyone tried to find something else to do or somewhere else to be.

Cailix stood for a while, taking in the scene before her, assessing the destruction she had caused. It wasn't just the sheer number of animals she had disposed of as fuel for her power. She had also decimated an entire naval fleet, using nothing but her own power and livestock.

What must it have been like during the Fulcrum War, when the blood mages used sigilords as their fuel?
she thought. Just a few drops of Urus's blood could have supplied all the power she needed to summon that tidal wave. The devastation caused by the Fulcrum War, the number of innocent people who must have died, was incomprehensible.

"Orla!" came a shout from the beach head.

"Orla, we found survivors!" another man shouted, appearing on the shoreline from around a bend in the dunes.

She really does run this place
, Cailix thought, smiling. The men hadn't called for the constable or any of the council members, they'd called for Orla.

Cailix stumbled and crashed her way down the sandy shore to where they had dragged two survivors out of the water and lain them on a section of torn decking from one of the ships. Colin, Orla, and Woss all trailed after her. Part of her hoped one of them was Anderis, so she could kill him personally.

She was disappointed and relieved to see that both of the survivors had dark skin and were tall, strong warriors. Both lay on their sides, retching saltwater onto the sand, propped up and being aided by a group of fishermen.

"Urus!" she shouted, seeing the array of weapons scattered around the two dark-skinned boys. "Urus!"

One of the boys rolled over and squinted up at her. It was Goodwyn, Urus's friend. He had never seemed to warm up to her, not that she could blame him. The night they'd sabotaged the fuel towers, Goodwyn had watched her gut a briene alive and use his blood to set fire to the tower. Since then, he had kept a distrustful distance from her.

"Cailix," he sputtered. "Where's Urus?"
 

"I thought he was with you," she said.

"Enemies approaching!" shouted one of the fishermen, pointing off shore.

Cailix spun to see a dozen rafts, each carrying a group of briene soldiers, as well as several dark-skinned Kestian warriors and Waldrene soldiers.
What in the hell happened while I was gone?

"Those aren't enemies, they're briene," she said. "They were helping me fight the Order's ships."

Goodwyn tended to his friend while the fishermen and farmers helped pull the briene rafts up to the beach, creating quite the unusual gathering of soldiers and island natives. And Cailix. She didn't fit into any of the groups and stood off to the side, watching as the soldiers discussed the battle, looks of relief and happiness on their faces. She didn't know if she would ever be on the inside of such a group or share in those looks of mutual enjoyment.

"Who's Urus?" Colin asked. "You were calling his name earlier, hoping he was one of the survivors."

Cailix sighed. "Not now, Colin," she said, and walked past him up the beach, toward the bowl of Orla's soup that still called to her.

She sat down on the scrub-grass next to the bowl and plunged the ladle in, then dropped the ladle on the ground when the air on the beach where she'd come from rippled and warped, the image of the sand and the water beyond it bending and shifting, as if someone was stretching a painting.

Then, out of that distorted painting of the scene before her popped a dozen figures. They simply appeared, and then the strange warping effect stopped, a rush of sea water exploding outward onto the sand around them. Ten brilliantly colored suits of armor stood on the beach, two of them holding Urus upright next to the grey-skinned man.

Cailix yelped and raced down the beach.

She ran to Urus and hugged him, squeezing as tightly as she could. She didn't care if he was going to return the gesture. He was the only kindred spirit she had, and she had thought him dead. Finally something good had come of all this, a reason for her to smile.

Her smile disappeared when she felt warm blood drip from Urus's face onto her shoulder and he dropped to the sand in a heap.
 

"Oh no!" she shouted and knelt over him. "Is he alive?"

"Barely," Murin replied coldly. "But for how long I cannot say. I fear he spent the last of his energy getting us here."

At this, the suits of armor each bent to one knee and planted a sword in the sand in front of them. Crowds of people and soldiers of all sizes and colors gathered around the scene.

Cailix looked down at the broken, nearly dead boy laying on the sand. His branded scar had been burned into his shirt, blood glued the shirt to the scar below. Bone stuck out from his arm, and his face was barely recognizable as human. The bottom half of his mouth didn't even seem to be attached.

This poor boy had been through unimaginable torture, and this was just the beginning. As she looked down at him she couldn't help but think of the little birds in the nest she encountered when she first arrived on the island. Two had been so weak or injured that they would have been a burden to the other, and she'd killed them to ensure the strong one survived.
 

She could do the same for Urus. She could end his suffering. Even if he managed to live through this, his life would be an endless struggle, she knew that now. It was the burden of having such power. She could spare him a lifetime of constant struggle, loss, and suffering. All she had to do was end it right here, and his pain would be over just like the sickly little birds on the rocks.

She leaned over him and stuck her finger into one of his open wounds, in search of fresh blood.

"No, Cailix, don't!" Murin shouted.

Maybe life is worth the struggle,
she thought.

"What are you doing to him?" Goodwyn yelled. "Leave him alone, you're going to kill him!"

Cailix ignored everyone and watched as the blood on her fingertip—the still-warm blood of a dying sigilord—disappeared, absorbed through her skin and converted into raw power.

She closed her eyes and let the power take over, sensing all of his wounds.

So much pain
, she thought.
So many wounds!
How did he ever survive this?

"In Hol's name," she heard Goodwyn say. His gasp was followed by sounds of shock and amazement from the other onlookers, but she didn't stop to open her eyes. She had too much work to do.

One by one, her mind and her power sought out Urus's wounds.
 

So many wounds! What had he been fighting?
She wondered.

The power surged through her into the wounds, closing holes, mending muscles, sealing broken bones back, and reattaching parts. A loud crack accompanied the mending of his elbow as it snapped back into place. She felt the muscles reshape around Urus's bones. She also felt some of the agonizing, searing pain that Urus had felt when receiving those wounds. She had no idea how he had managed to survive.