The Lost Realm (48 page)

Away . . .

In a single breath Tarlan's anger was gone. Everything was gone. He felt hollowed out. Yet he also felt strangely renewed. Once, his life had been simple. Now even though his heart was filled with grief, he knew it could be simple again.

“It's over.” He fell limp across Theeta's back. “All of it. Everything that happened was all for nothing. And now it's time to leave it all behind.”

“Crown lost.”

“Yes, Theeta. Lost to me, at least. If Elodie wants the crown, she's welcome to it. As for me . . . I've finished with Toronia.”

“Find thorrods.”

Smiling, Tarlan patted her neck.

“Yes. Let's find them. The others, too. All that matters is that we're together.”

“Fly fast.”

“No, we don't have to go fast. Just far. Fly far, Theeta. Far away from here.”

“Fly where?”

Tarlan smiled. Thorrods almost never asked questions. When they did, you could be sure you'd reached a moment of great importance.

A turning point.

“It doesn't matter where, Theeta. Just as long as it's away.”

Behind them the morning sun shone through the smoke as Idilliam continued to burn. Ahead the sun's rays illuminated the forest where Tarlan's pack was waiting. They would meet up, and then they would set off together on a new journey that had nothing to do with prophecies and crowns, but which was wholly their own.

The battle was over. It was time to go.

Away from Toronia. Away from everything.

C
louds hid the night. There was no moon; there were no stars. The comet that had dominated the darkness in previous days was gone. Even the three prophecy stars—those bright points of fate about which lives had turned—were invisible.

Elodie stood at the window of the cell at the top of the White Tower, truly a prisoner at last. She gazed through the metal bars and into the blackness beyond.

It's like staring into an abyss.

That made her think of Idilliam, the Battle of the Bridge, and of her fall into the chasm surrounding the city.

Of how her brother had saved her.

Oh, Tarlan, where are you now?

Had he found his way back to Isur after his journey to the Isle of Stars? Had his mission to restore Melchior's powers succeeded? She had no way of knowing. But a dreadful suspicion clawed at her heart.

If he finds anyone from Trident, they'll tell him I'm a traitor. They don't know I was trying to save them. They'll say I turned against them—against him . . .

As for Gulph . . . who knew what had become of him?

She touched the empty place at her throat where her green jewel had once hung. Having it snatched away by Lord Vicerin, at the very moment she'd been bundled into her cell, had been the final blow to fall on the most painful day of her life.

With a deep sigh Elodie turned from the window. She could feel the night at her back. It was like a living presence.

“Are you ready?” she said.

Sylva and Cedric looked up at her from where they were kneeling on the floor. The room was dimly lit by candles, and the flickering light played across their faces.

“You'll have to be quick,” said Sylva. “The guards are sure to be back soon.”

“I'm just waiting for Samial,” Elodie replied. “As soon as he gets here . . .”

As if he'd heard her words, Samial appeared at the window. “I have brought you what you asked for.”

He perched on the ledge outside the cell window and handed her a small canvas bag through the bars. Elodie took it, then peered outside.

“I gave your note to Frida,” he said. “She gathered everything you asked for.”

“You did well.”

Joining Cedric and Sylva, Elodie laid the bag's contents on the stone floor. A moment later Samial was at her side, having melted through the wall as if the solid stonework was no more than a thought.

“So many dead,” said Cedric, sorting through the little pile of objects with his one remaining hand.

Elodie picked up the items one by one. A gold necklace. A coin. A charred scrap of silk. A silver charm. Each item had belonged to one of the heads of Ritherlee's noble families. Each item had been in their possession when they'd been murdered by Lord Vicerin. A fine soot covered them all.

“He set fire to all the bodies,” Samial explained. “Even the ones that were already burned.”

“He wants to destroy all memory of them,” said Elodie. “Well, he won't succeed.”

She picked up the last of the items: a silver signet ring with a decorative seal. The last time she'd seen this ring, it had been on the finger of a woman she'd grown to admire. A woman she'd once thought might actually be the one to stand against Lord Vicerin.

Lady Darrand.

“All right.” She placed the ring back in the pile. “I'm ready.”

“Do you really think this will work?” asked Sylva.

“It must. It's our only chance to escape. Our only chance to bring him down.”

“Our father,” said Cedric quietly.

“Yes. Your father.”

My husband
, she thought with a shudder.

Cedric looked at her. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Elodie closed her eyes.

At first she saw nothing, felt nothing. She tried to focus her mind, but her thoughts kept slipping away.

Concentrate, Elodie!

But how? How was she supposed to know what to do?

She took a slow, deep breath, felt the air flooding into her lungs, then emptying itself out.

She did it again, and this time something moved in the darkness behind her eyes. Tiny lights flashed in the corners of her awareness, like sparks, like fireflies, like . . .

Like grains of sand dancing in the desert wind.

The sand whirled, thickened, took form. She wasn't just seeing the shapes it made; she was
feeling
them. They filled her up, rasping against her, the emptied-out husks of people turned hot and dry and lifeless by the scouring of sand and sun.

No. They are not without life. They are
beyond
life.

A pressure was growing inside her. The wind howled.

Heat!
she thought in exultation.
And sand! This is it! This is where my power comes from. I don't understand it. But I know it. And I can use it!

The wind became a storm. The storm wanted to escape the confines of her body. She was its prison, and she had the power to make it free.

Escape! Freedom! If I give it to you, can you give it to me?

The shapes inside her were spinning. A tornado. The heat was too much to bear. Fighting to hold herself steady in the darkness, she opened her mouth, expecting the storm to erupt from her.

But what came out were words.

“Come now!” she cried. “Come now, all of you! I am here! Be here with me! Come now!”

Elodie opened her eyes to flickering candlelight. She'd expected the room to be turned upside down, ravaged by the storm she'd unleashed.

But the storm had been inside her all the time.

“Did it work?” said Sylva, anxiously looking at her. “Are they here?”

Elodie looked past her sister toward the window, not quite trusting her eyes. Were those figures she saw, or just wisps of smoke? For a moment they swirled, a line of drifting pillars that were somehow both dark and light at the same time. Then, one by one, they began to solidify into the shapes of people.

The nobles of Ritherlee. You're here. Oh, you're really here.

Of course they were.

She had summoned them.

The more she stared at the ghosts, the more real they became. Here was an old man standing proud and tall, there a stout young woman who looked both tired and ferocious. Their bodies were hazy, so that Elodie could see the stone walls of the cell through them, but with every breath she took they became more solid.

More real.

“Elodie?” said Sylva in a quavering voice. She'd turned around to face the window, and now her eyes had grown wide with shock. “I can see them!”

Elodie gaped at her. “You can? Really?”

“So can I,” said Cedric in a small, wondering voice. “You must be getting stronger, Elodie.”

By now the line of ghosts had become almost completely solid. One of the women stepped forward. She wore a yellow robe over shining armor. Her face was pale and determined. Elodie recognized her at once.

“Lady Darrand,” she said, rising to her feet.

The ghost regarded her, then put her hand to her hip. Slowly, with infinite care, she drew her phantom sword. Then she dropped to one knee and bowed her head.

Behind her, the rest of the Ritherlee nobles did the same.

The ghost of Lady Darrand tilted her head up until her eyes met Elodie's. Outside the window, the night's black shroud seemed to flutter, as if something unseen had suddenly changed.

All the hairs on the back of Elodie's neck stood on end.

“We come to answer your call, Your Highness,” said Lady Darrand. “What is your command?”

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♦
BOOK ONE
♦

Crown of Three

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.