The Rising King (23 page)

I close my eyes again and call. Mom’s scream jerks my head up. Even Grandpa comes out of his chair. He looks at me, then toward the living room, a frown centered on his face. “Dylan? Come here.”

I immediately go to him. He sits me down at the table. “Do your thing.” At my confused expression, he says, “You know, your thing. What you were just doing in there.”

“Okay.” I close my eyes and concentrate. Once again, Mom cries out.

I immediately stop and look her way. Grandpa looks at me and then Mom. I go and stand over her. Grandma is holding the homemade ice pack to Mom’s side while Mom whimpers about the pain right where her dragon tattoo is.

“Mom, when did you get the tattoo?”

My question takes her by surprise. “I don’t remember,” she says. “I’ve had it forever.”

“Before you left home?” I press.

“I think so. Yeah. Why?”

I turn to Grandma. “Did she get it before she left home?”

She shakes her head. “I never saw a tattoo on her, and I would have. She lived in her bathing suit that summer.”

Grandpa snorts. “All the boys liked that. Made them all into Peeping Toms. The little shits.”

“George,” Grandma warns him.

“Well, they were,” he mutters. “That’s why half of them have buckshot scars from me chasing them off.”

I squat near Mom and take her hand in mine. “Mom, this is important. How did you get the tattoo?”

She pushes a dark curl off her face with her free hand. “How do you think I got it? I went to…” Her hand stills over the curl and a frown clouds her face. “I had, um…I must have gone to town to get it.”

She sounds exactly like Grandma when I asked her about the coin. It must be part of the magic. “You don’t sound too sure about that. You would remember getting a tattoo like yours. It looks expensive.”

Grandma bites her lip and shakes her head. “She couldn’t have paid for it. She had no money.”

“I had money. I had a coin, and…” Her frown deepens.

She remembers the coin. I look at Grandma. “She turned the magic into a tattoo. It was never the necklace.” I’m such an idiot. That’s why Augustus couldn’t get rid of the ink, and that’s why Kera could take the necklace so easily. “The necklace really is just a necklace.”

Mom looks from me to Grandma, and it’s like a light suddenly turns on. “Oh. My. God. I have magic on me?” She pushes Grandma’s hands and the ice pack away and rakes up her shirt to see the tattoo. Because of me, it’s once again red and swollen. “Get it off! Get it off of me!”

She starts crying, and looks at me with pleading eyes. “Get it off, Dylan.”

“I can’t. I don’t know how.” Baun never told me what to do if the magic refused to be taken.

Her sobs grow louder and she slumps back onto the couch. Grandpa shakes his head. “For crying out loud, Addison. It’s been on there for seventeen years and hasn’t hurt you. Get a grip.”

Her cries grow louder, and she complains to Grandma how mean he’s being. Grandpa pulls me into the kitchen and sits me down. “Look, son, I’m not one to tell you what to do. This is your life and your people, but you’ve got to get that off of her. She’ll drive us all batty if you don’t.”

“I’m not kidding, Grandpa. I don’t know how to do it.”

“Someone has to know.”

“Faldon, probably. Bodog maybe. I’d have to take her back to Teag.”

“No. I won’t go,” Mom sobs from the next room. “Baun hates me. He’s been taunting me in my dreams.”

I remember her freaking out about someone trying to find her when I “visited” her after I got poisoned by the millispits. Figures Dad’s been terrorizing her. Not all of his “old” self is completely rehabilitated, no matter how much he’d like everyone to believe otherwise.

Grandma pats Mom’s hand. “I’m sure he doesn’t hate you, sweetheart.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure he does,” I mutter, but not softly enough because it sets Mom off on another wail. I quickly jump in when she takes a breath. “You won’t even see him. We’ll find someone who can tell us how to transfer the magic to me. Then you can come back here without him even knowing you were there.”

Finding Kera will have to wait. It’s killing me to think of her out there alone, fighting the darkness she can’t control, but Teag is my main priority. It’s what Kera would want me to do. And after delivering the magic, only then can I fully concentrate on finding her.

A big paw of a hand slaps me on the shoulder, and Grandpa gives it a nerve-searing squeeze. “Sounds like a plan. I’m going with you.”

I know my mouth has fallen open. I can feel the air rushing in. Grandpa in Teag? Why does that not sound like a good idea?

The Weight of a Stone

The necklace hung under Kera’s shirt, solid and heavy as the stone rubbed against her collarbone every time she moved. She had put it around her neck so she wouldn’t lose it, but she wanted more than anything to tear it off and bury it so deep, no one would ever find and use the magic it held.

It was nearing dawn as she stumbled through the streets and alleyways of Ainsbury Cross. The shop signs swung in the breeze, clattering with the sound of neglect. Her village echoed like a ghost town since everyone had moved to the Ruined City hoping for some form of protection against the Dark Souls and the marauders who’d terrorized Teag since Jason’s death. Kera knew it was dangerous cutting through the town, but she had no choice. Her destination lay at the opposite end.

As she traveled down an alleyway, a Dark Soul slowly slid into view. She quickly pressed her body close to the building and stared at the alley’s entrance, praying the evil soul would keep moving. When it did, she let out a soft sigh, turned, and came up short.

A Dark Soul hovered in front of her. Its inky blackness obscured everything in her sight. Slowly the mass took shape until Navar stood like a shadowy stain in the air. “Alone again? You are reckless.”

Kera’s heart thudded within her chest. “Out of my way.”

“I could kill you now.”

She touched her fingers to the necklace and felt a sense of calm descend. “I don’t think so. The last time we met, neither of us went away unscathed.”

“You were lucky.” The curls of inky shadows slipped closer, teasing her with the threat of his touch.

“So were you.”

Navar leaned close and sniffed. A knowing smile outlined his shadowy mouth. “You smell…”

Kera leaned back, repulsed by his closeness, but stood her ground. The last thing she needed was his thinking she was scared. “I smell?”

“…like rot.” He nodded to her injured wrist she kept covered by the tight leather bracelet. “Someone has been using dark magic.”

Her stomach tightened as her jaw flexed. She drew her
incordium
dagger and hissed, “Get away from me!”

He slithered back, a curling, swirling oily mass of evil, and smiled. “Welcome to the dark side.”

Deep, thick laughter rolled over Kera, causing her stomach to clench. She lashed out, slicing into Navar’s wavering mass, slicing it into tiny bits, until she was on her knees, stabbing at the black puddles that stained the alleyway’s cobblestones. The last click of her blade hitting the stones filled the air. Her breathing ripped in and out of her lungs as she trembled from the rage beating in her chest. She glanced at the entrance. Another shadowy form began to cross. Kera rolled to her left and hid behind a wooden barrel, her blade held tightly to her chest. The blackness that was Navar’s soul began to swirl together. When he reappeared, it would end in a fight she wasn’t sure she could win. She calculated the distance to the end of the alley. If she were fast, and she was very fast, she could be there and gone before either Dark Soul reached her.

Quietly, she tucked her feet beneath her, eyes focused on her exit, and sprang forward. If anyone looked, all they would see would be a blur of movement as she dashed to the end of the alley and down a connecting street. She didn’t stop running until she reached Faldon’s home on the outskirts of town. Her fist pounded the door. She waited, shivering from the exertion and terror that filled her.

The door cracked open to reveal Bodog, pale and googly-eyed.

Dirty, sore, and heartbroken, Kera stood in front of her scowling, unkempt friend. He thumped his stick in front of him and leaned heavily on it.

The Dark Souls had scared everyone off…everyone but Bodog. Faldon’s house was the little man’s refuge. His whole life moved in a steady, unhurried existence ten feet beneath the centuries-old floorboards.

He didn’t say a word as she stood at the threshold, alone and scared. Tears welled in her eyes. “I nearly killed Dylan.” She was no better than the Seven Sisters she had condemned to one hundred years of solitude.

“Nearly is not dead,” the little man said.

His observation, given without pity or even interest, surprised her. Bodog began to shut the door when the stick he leaned on quivered so violently, he almost toppled over. Lifting it to eye level, Faldon’s unhappy face appeared in the dried and crackly bark. “Invite her in, you miasmic mole.”

Bodog grumbled about uninvited guests, but allowed her to come inside. She entered the kitchen and sat at the table. Holding her head in her hands, she wept, feeling her heart breaking in two for what she’d done.

Faldon fussed at the little man and instructed him to lift him higher so he could see Kera better. “What happened?”

“Everything has gone wrong,” she sobbed into her hands.

“Where is Dylan now?”

Kera rubbed at her eyes and lifted her head. “I don’t know. I ran off, and he left.”

“That’s to be expected. Did you not say you tried to kill him?”

Hearing him say it out loud made her want to vomit. “What is happening? I nearly killed the only person I have ever loved. I thought I could control the magic, but it’s controlling me. I don’t know what to do,” she wailed. “I’m turning into…into…” She couldn’t finish her thought. She untied the leather bracelet and let it fall to her lap. There, on her wrist, her flesh was torn, just like one of the Nightmare Men. She couldn’t look. It was too gruesome.

Bodog shook his head, his ears flapping, his jowls jostling.

Faldon’s face receded for a moment as if repulsed by the sight. When he reappeared, his voice held a note of pain. “Dark magic can seduce the purest heart. It can twist a noble idea until there is only a shadow of what was once good.”

“How could I have let this happen?”

“Pure motives are not always enough.”

“I cannot live like this. I’m a danger to everyone.” Kera lifted the necklace from beneath her shirt, unlatched it, and placed it on the table. The amber stone warmed the room with its mellow hue. “Take this. It’s the Salter’s magic Baun needs to defeat the Dark Souls.”

Bodog poked his nose at the necklace, then pulled away, his nose crinkled as if he smelled something bad. “Bodog has more magic than that.”

Kera couldn’t stop her jaw from dropping. He couldn’t be right. “If not the Salter’s magic, what is it?”

“A necklace.”

Kera picked it up and stared at the amber stone she believed would kill her. But it didn’t. Not when she had inadvertently used it to pull Dylan’s magic from him. She’d been so scared afterward, she hadn’t stopped to think about what had happened. “When I almost killed Dylan, some of our magic transferred into it.”

“You created a Keeper of Life.”

“A what?”

“It’s what our people used to do in the old days, before we were relegated to this realm. Our power was intense, far more than it is now, and wild. We came to understand how our magic could help as easily as it could hurt. The most powerful of us created Keepers of Life by transferring their magic into an object that can be utilized by the owner in a safer manner, though there is never a perfect solution to any problem.

“The Salter’s magic is one of the most powerful Keepers of Life we know about. But as many things do, the magic fell into the wrong hands. And because it has the distinction of changing its appearance with each new owner, it had a habit of disappearing for centuries.”

“A Keeper of Life…” Kera had heard of the term, though she was hard-pressed to remember much about it. “But magic
was
their life, wasn’t it?”

“Containing their magic allowed them to have a life with the humans as a human, but when they needed their old life back, they could easily access it.”

Did Faldon know what he had just done? He had given her a way out without giving up her magic completely. Neither Faldon nor Bodog had to tell her what to do. It was time to get her life back, time to draw out the magic that was in her.

Faldon said something, a warning of some sort, but Kera wasn’t listening. She’d already begun the process of creating a Keeper of Life. It wouldn’t take any effort to finish what she had started.

She could do it if she thought of Dylan. Tears welled up and she furiously blinked them away. She clasped the necklace in her hand and closed her eyes. “I can do this. For Dylan.”

“NO!”
Faldon’s raspy voice cried.

The chair she sat in, the table she was near, even the floorboards beneath her, rattled, sending Bodog scurrying into the far corner with Faldon held tightly in his hands as she began the transfer.

Somewhere amid the rumble she heard Faldon’s protest, begging her to stop before it was too late. But this was the only way. Surely he knew that. Her hand glowed and the amber stone warmed. The glow slowly crept up her arm and traveled over her shoulders and spread until her whole body shone.

The power within her dug painfully deep, resisting the transfer. Kera gasped. Her skin lost its glow and the power began to return to her. She concentrated harder until her skin radiated an intense gold. The rafters shook and Bodog wailed, covering his head as parts of the ceiling rained down. Kera ignored the chaos. Ignored the pain. She thought only of Dylan. The house shuttered as if it were being ripped off its foundation. The magic finally ripped free, and in a blazing rush, slid into the amber. A sun-bright flash had her turning away from the light. The stone burned her hand, but she didn’t let go, not even when the room was plunged into an unnatural darkness.

Slowly the early-morning light returned. Kera opened her hand and the stone rolled out, hissing and smoking. Her palm was red and blistered black. She winced and blew on it, but nothing she did eased the burn. Still, it was a small price to pay for the return of her sanity.

Bodog uncurled from the corner and muttered about guests trying to destroy his home. He unceremoniously dumped a supply of tinctures and bandages on the table in front of her.

“That was foolish,” Faldon’s gruff voice lashed out at her. “Ten times more foolish than anything you have ever done.”

He may say she was foolish, but she felt relieved. Free. Kera tended to her hand as Bodog fluttered about the house, room to room, using the stick to poke at the damage even as Faldon spouted dire warnings of death because of what she’d done.

As she bound her hand, she noticed her wrist. It was healed, as was her shoulder. Only two small white scars remained where her flesh had been torn. A pleased smile shaped her lips. “It was the only solution and you know it.” Kera stared at the stone. Its color, shape, and size appeared normal. No magical glint gave it away. After she finished bandaging her hand, she reattached the leather cuff, and tried out a simple command, calling a cup that hung on the wall near the stove to come to her hand. Nothing. She touched the stone and repeated the command. The cup flew off the wall and into her hand. Her pleased smile turned into a confident smirk.

A shriek caught Kera’s attention. Bodog must have found an especially large crack in the wall. A tiny sliver of guilt made her grimace. She hadn’t meant to cause any damage, but honestly, did he need to overdramatize the situation? She could hear him scuffling about in the next room and Faldon trying to calm him down.

The door to the kitchen flew open and Bodog entered, carrying Faldon, who was shedding bark as he quivered violently in Bodog’s hand. The little man waved her to him. “Come. Now. No time.”

She stood and hooked the necklace around her neck. “I’ll fix whatever it is. I promise.”

Her words were barely uttered when Faldon stopped shaking and shouted for her to duck. A fiery ball of inky blackness slammed into the window and tore through the kitchen. Kera dived toward Bodog, and they tumbled into the other room, but it was no better there. Fire engulfed the whole house. Bodog led Kera to the entrance of his underground tunnels and urged her down the steep stairs. He slammed the trapdoor shut, but thick dark-gray smoke filtered through the cracks.

“You must fill the space with dirt to keep us safe,” Faldon yelled at Kera.

She nodded and let Bodog pass. Clutching the amber around her neck, she moved the earth, backing down the steps as she did, until the entrance was totally blocked by several feet of dirt.

Coughing, she followed Bodog down the remaining stairs and into his realm of dirt and rocks and moist air. “What happened?”

“Dark Souls.”

Why didn’t she think Navar would search for her? She’d irritated him once too often to have him ignore her now. “I saw Navar. We fought. He must have followed me.”

“You wish to know why I am angry for what you did? This is why. He will know you’ve made a Keeper of Life. He’ll want it. And now that you’ve put all of his and Baun’s magic in there without creating safeguards to keep you and it from evil intentions, he can kill you, which sets the magic free, and then take it.”

Now she understood his anger. She’d made a terrible mistake. “How can he use it? He’s dead.”

“He won’t. He’ll give it to someone who can.”

It didn’t take Kera long to figure out who. “Granel.” Saying his name soured her mouth. “Navar will give it to that little snake.”

“Possibly. Does it really matter who? With Navar pulling the strings, the lives of your people will become a nightmare.”

She entered an area more open than the tight tunnels Bodog had created, and she called for Bodog to stop. She began to take the necklace off. “I’ll just transfer it all back into me.”

Bodog shook his head. “You cannot.”

Her hands stilled. “What do you mean?” If he was worried about a cave-in, then she could wait until they went above ground.

Faldon’s face appeared more worried and worn than ever. “You can never regain that magic. It is lost to you in the sense that if you lose the necklace, you lose the magic.”

Now she understood the enormity of what she’d done. Her hand went to the amber stone. “Oh.”

“There are two ways to release the magic. Destroy you, which would release the magic from the stone. Or destroy the stone.”

“Then we should destroy the stone.”

“No! The magic could disappear, or fuse with the nearest person. No one knows. But one thing is for sure. Destroying the stone will destroy you.”