The Northern Approach (40 page)

Estin looked over at Dalania, who watched him for some idea of what was going on. Taking a deep breath, he passed along Feanne’s request.

Bowing deeply, Dalania replied, “You have my promise, as your father did before you.”

Feanne’s bright eyes turned on Estin and she smiled coyly. “Do this if you feel confident. I will help how I can for as much time as I have. I would always welcome another hour to fight at your side, my love.”

Atall stepped toward Feanne and took her hand as though it were solid for him. “I will see you again someday,” he told her, clinging to her hand tightly. “When you have found peace for real, we will finally meet again, Mother.”

Feanne pulled Atall close and pressed her cheek to his, squeezing her eyes tightly shut to prevent tears from escaping. A second later, Atall faded away and Feanne let her arms drop. “Do this before I question the sanity of your plans again, Estin,” she told him, wiping at her face.

Estin closed his eyes, partially to concentrate and partially to keep from seeing his mate weep for their son. He sought within himself the feelings of immense power and rage that had come with the spirit’s awakening the last few times. Inside his own mind, he found fear and uncertainty, but there was no hint of the raging creature that On’esquin had placed there.

“He knows anger and death,” Estin reminded himself, pushing down his growing frustration.

Despite spending months trying to put aside thoughts that haunted him, Estin drew them to the surface. He thought about Atall’s death, focusing on wanting to kill Arturis, not the sadness he had initially felt. He slowly began to feel something that seemed to pulsate within his chest, making it hard to breathe. Taking that as a good sign for what he was trying to do, he redirected his thoughts to the vague memories of his parents dying, now horrifically connected to the Turessians.

Slowly, he felt rage and the hum of energy grow within his chest, burning through his limbs. His senses became more clear and he could hear the undead moving about in the village, smell the decay on them and the blood of his friends, and feel even the slight tremors in the ground from the flock of deer running through the woods, circling back on the undead.

Estin began to shape the magic, pleased that he had found some way to control the Turessian spirit inside him, when all of the energy seemed to abruptly pull away. Clinging to his anger, he tried to draw it back, but it fought him. His heart pounded as he struggled within his own mind and body to control an intangible force.

“Come on,” he whispered to himself, his whole body trembling with the effort of keeping the magic from escaping. “Dammit. Stop fighting me, Oramain! Show me you can do this!”

Warmth flared through Estin’s skin, making his fur feel as though had caught on fire. Magic then formed around Estin as a shield and a weapon, burning like fire across his claws and fangs as it sought to escape into whatever he had to fight. Dozens of distinct voices shouted in his mind, made more intense by the transformation his body went through. These were not the voices of the dead that lingered in the minds of every healer, but voices of those he—or rather, Oramain—had watched die. The number of those voices grew each second, making Estin wonder how many Oramain had at his disposal before he was defeated.

This was the difficult part, Estin told himself, holding the anger and magic in check only barely. Every instinct told him to run for his friends, to kill everything in his way with the power flooding through his veins. He knew even with all the power he felt, a Turessian would likely defeat him, especially with an army at her side. He was not Oramain, nor did he have all the powers of a Turessian. He had barely survived fighting Arturis with this power and that time, Feanne had been beside him.

Estin felt as though he were wrestling a cloud, straining to maintain control over the magic within himself. He dragged it forward, bringing it to his hands to form into a spell. Opening his eyes, he saw white flames covered his forearms, each flickering with faces of the dead. Their names and deaths lingered at the edge of his consciousness, making it even more difficult for him to concentrate. Memories of their deaths hinted that if he could calm himself, he could remember every one of them. That was not something he had felt in previous attempts to use Oramain’s powers.

Just as he thought he was reaching the end of his own endurance, fresh strength flowed into him from the direction of Dalania. Somehow she was contributing her own power to his efforts. Even that only slowed the sensation of being torn apart, but another source of strength abruptly made the entire casting feel almost trivial. Rather than question good fortune, Estin pushed on.

“Come back to me, Feanne,” he whispered, releasing the magic in a torrent at the spirit standing in front of him.

The magic leapt of its own accord, trying to free itself of Estin’s control. He struggled with it, trying to shape the stream of white flames into the same pattern as the spells he would have used to bring life back into a fallen ally who had not yet gone cold. For all his effort, the magic seemed to do what it wanted before fading away, leaving the woods quiet and still. With its disappearance a burning and tearing sensation washed across Estin’s lungs and he struggled to catch his breath as the magic ended.

Looking around, Estin saw only Dalania. Feanne’s spirit had vanished, as had the flames and magic within himself. He felt entirely empty and terrified that he had wasted his most powerful abilities for nothing. Every fiber of his being ached as though he had run for hours, leaving him exhausted to the point of collapse. Even his veins burned, his blood feeling hot within him.

“Feanne?”

Estin shifted his vision repeatedly, trying to spot anything magical or mundane that might be happening, but the entire woods seemed still. Beside him, Dalania let out a sad moan and put her face in her hands.

He had used every ounce of his strength for nothing. In emotional agony at his mistake, Estin fell onto his back, staring up at the sky in dismay. It could be days or weeks before he could try again and no matter how many animals Dalania called, the Turessian would eventually kill Raeln, Yoska, and On’esquin.

Without warning the bag at Estin’s side containing Feanne’s remains exploded, flipping him onto his side. Ashes flew away from him to where her spirit had been a moment earlier, swirling around like a whirlwind, gathering up more dirt as it spun, until the entire funnel of ash seemed to be thickening. Then, with a crack that sent a rumble through the air, all of the remaining dust and ash fell to the ground around Feanne, who lay on the ground naked and unmoving. Old scars covered her body in thin lines where fur would not grow, brought back as clearly as they had been when she had lived. Slowly she curled into a ball, pulling her knees to her muzzle as she lay on her side. Her whole body tensed as though in pain, tucking her tail and arms close to her torso and curling her toes against her paws, gasping for breath.

Recovering first, Dalania rushed past Estin, grabbing the traveling cloak from his pack as she went by. She went straight to Feanne and threw the cloak over her, covering Feanne’s nakedness and hugging her tightly.

Estin was beside himself with shock that it had worked at all. He sat there, staring at Feanne for several seconds before he shook off his surprise and scrambled across the ground to her and pulled her into his arms as Dalania sat back and watched, smiling happily.

“Feanne?” he whispered, checking her pulse. It was weak, but steady and growing stronger the longer he kept his finger there. Her whole body trembled uncontrollably in his arms. “Wake up, Feanne.”

Eventually Feanne’s eyes opened and she looked around in confusion. She stared up at Estin and then turned her head and gazed at Dalania. “Where am I?” she asked softly, sitting up and pulling free of Estin’s grip. When he tried to reach for her again, she shoved him away. “Who’re you?”

That last question stabbed at Estin’s chest like a knife, making him want to scream at the sky. His mate, the only person he had ever loved and who his whole world revolved around, was staring at him like a stranger. He could think of nothing as painful and wished he had been wiser about making this choice. He had done something wrong. He had brought her back incomplete.

“Can you fight?” Estin asked her, fighting the angry shaking in his body. Grief and sending her home could wait. The others needed help, regardless of how badly he had failed.

Dalania seemed to pick up on his discomfort and stood up, her eyes on the ground. She looked around nervously as she wrung her hands, clearly at a loss for what to do.

Raising her hands in front of her face, Feanne flexed her fingers and studied her long claws. She smiled grimly and nodded. “I believe I can. That, I remember. My instincts tell me how. I remember how to bite and claw at my enemy…whoever that is.”

“Do you remember who you are?” asked Dalania, giving Estin a worried look.

“I’m…Feanne, I think,” answered Feanne, though she seemed less than sure. “Is that right? I heard him call me that.”

“Yes, and that will have to be enough for now,” said Estin, offering her a hand up. “There’s no more time to wait. We have to go save the others.”

“Others? Are they people I care about?” replied Feanne, giving Estin an annoyed look.

Dalania came up alongside them and motioned toward Estin. “Feanne, do you know who this is? He would never lie to you, let alone about us needing to go help someone.”

That had been the question Estin did not want to ask after seeing the confused look in Feanne’s eyes. He could convince himself he had done this to save the others so long as he did not think on his relationship with her, but by asking that, Dalania brought it to the forefront.

“No,” Feanne replied, studying Estin’s face while she continued to sit on the ground. “I do want to chase him up a tree, though. Should I know him or should I eat him?”

Estin shot Dalania an angry glare, and she lowered her eyes sadly, trying to look anywhere but the two of them. “He is a friend, as am I, Feanne.”

Feanne eyed Estin’s hand warily but finally took it and stood. Once on her feet, she seemed unsteady for a moment, shifting her weight to one paw and then the other. She gradually straightened up, spreading her toes as if to help maintain her balance, like a child learning how to walk. Looking back, she eyed her own tail with surprise. “I’m a fox?” she asked, turning around in a circle to try to see her tail clearly. “Why do I have claws like this? I don’t remember foxes having sharp claws. What am I? What are the two of you?”

Estin’s throat tightened and he felt like he was drowning. Asrahn would come back from the dead to kill him if she found out her daughter was living like this, even for a few hours…and on some level, he hoped she would. Through his dismay, he managed to say, “We can worry about that later. We have to go.”

Raising her nose, Feanne sniffed the air. “I smell death. Is that where we’re going? Is that where I will hunt?”

“Yes,” Dalania told her, coming over to stand beside Estin. She put a hand on his arm, and through the touch, Estin could feel her own tension. Given how much Dalania had worked to avoid being around the males in Feanne’s old camp, he knew her touch was something significant to her. “We need to go destroy the undead that are attacking our friends.”

Without another word, Feanne dropped to all fours and ran toward the village, never hesitating or waiting for the others. The cloak thrown hastily over her earlier fell aside, forgotten.

“She will be fine in time,” Dalania said, turning and taking Estin’s face in her hands to force him to look her in the eyes. Despite her forcefulness, she sounded far less than confident. “Trust in her strength, Estin. If she is not strong enough to remember herself, we will deal with that then. This is temporary, either way. Once she is dead again, her spirit will return to normal.”

Clenching his jaw, Estin nodded and pulled away, forcing himself to run after his mate. She had a good head start, but he was steadier on his feet and soon closed on her, though he could not quite catch her. She ran with wild abandon, racing through the last of the woods and leaping over the low wall into the village, landing on all fours, and continuing toward where Estin had last seen the others.

Estin drew his swords, knowing his strength had been sapped nearly to the point of collapse by his use of magic. He would be almost entirely dependent on his blades, Dalania, and Feanne if he were going to survive the fight. It was a humbling feeling, but he had no time to rest. He could only hope the two females were strong enough to make up for his efforts to bolster their numbers.