The Swarm Trilogy (41 page)

His palms rested on my cheeks, fingers jammed into the underside of my jaw. They hadn’t even started and already the pain was too much to bear. Tears glistened in my eyes. I let go of any bravery I’d built up. The walls I’d spent my whole life building and used to protect myself crumbled in seconds. This was the end. I knew it deep in my soul. I couldn’t help myself. The only witness to my abduction had no magic to mark where we’d gone. No one would find me and I’d die in a cave at the hands of the person who originally gave me life.

His fingers dug harder into me, the pain nearly unbearable. My mother chanted under her breath in a language I’d never heard before. Her voice dropped an octave. The words became more menacing with every breath. I didn’t know their exact meaning, but I had a pretty good idea that it only meant more bad things were coming my way.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable pain she said I’d experience. The fear of the unknown paralyzed my muscles. Even without their cocoon, I wouldn’t have been able to move. I had no way of protecting myself. My magic still felt like an empty well. I knew it was in there, but I couldn’t reach it, no matter what I did.

Then I felt it.

My soul ripped in two. My fire morphed into a knife, ripping through my body, setting it ablaze. I fought to open my mouth and let the scream building inside me out, but Xaxier’s fingers held my jaw shut. I struggled against my bonds.

Tears flowed from my eyes, streaming down my face, running in tiny tributaries around Xaxier’s hands. He didn’t move, even though these tears were different. They burned everything they touched, setting my skin aflame.

A light burst from my chest, the color of a campfire. Reds and oranges joined hands, dancing around the blue and white flames erupting into the air. The tendrils snaked through the air, winding their way toward my mother in a rainbow of magic. My mind slid toward oblivion. It was the only protection I could offer myself in the final moments.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sharp nails dug into my neck, bringing me back to consciousness.

“Don’t pass out, Lianne,” Xaxier whispered in my ear. “You won’t want to miss what’s next.”

He tilted my head up, forcing me to face forward. Beyond the menacing candlelight the flames jumped from my chest, snaking into my mother’s slack, open mouth. Her eyes turned from bright blue to black. I squinted and could have sworn I saw flames jumping in the black river of her eyes. I didn’t know if they were really there or a reflection from the flames dancing around the room.

“No,” I whispered through pursed lips. Xaxier still held me too tightly for my jaws to move. I didn’t want her to have my magic. It wasn’t because I needed it, only because I wanted to stop her. Her plan to conquer the Malborn would only lead to more death and destruction. What was the point of all this war?

Pain scorched my insides, slashing apart everything from my toes to my forehead. The steady pressure from Xaxier kept me awake, agony that increased every second the ritual continued. She was right. I wouldn’t survive this.

My head fell against the concrete altar. Xaxier’s hands grazed over my face, his fingers undulating in the air like willow branches fighting against a storm. The pain stopped almost immediately. My eyes grew wider. I tried to piece together what he was doing. He certainly wasn’t stopping her. The flames steadily coursed out of my body and into my mother’s mouth. My heart sank as I realized he was only abating my pain to ensure I didn’t pass out again.

Then he flicked his fingers in a motion all too familiar to me.

A portal opened in the room. I shut my eyes, not wanting to know what horrors he was bringing into the cave. My mouth breathed in the dank air, slowly. In one breath. Out with another. I opened one eye, but nothing emerged from the portal.

Until one boot stepped through, then another, followed by another body, hurling itself behind the first.

My breath caught in my chest. Bryden and Chase. Both of my eyes popped open. Xaxier winked at me.

“Get me out of this cocoon,” I begged him. “Please.”

“I can’t, Lianne. If you move now, you’ll die. Your mother’s spell will rip a hole in your chest if you move even an inch. Let them save you. Just relax.”

Relax? He had to be kidding.

Chase’s hands moved through the air, turning circles around each other. The muscles on his arms flexed and retracted. A glowing blue ball emerged between his hands and grew bigger with each movement.

Bryden stood, his legs bent at the knees, his hands up in a fighting stance. It wasn’t a good stance, not remotely steady. He’d never been trained in fighting. He was a scribe and even though he’d learned to use his magic, I still didn’t know how powerful he was. He’d saved me once from a dungeon filled with idiot guards. Against my mother, he didn’t stand a chance.

A vise took hold of my heart as I remembered their earlier fight. Bryden had seen a picture of himself dying at my mother’s hands while trying to save me. I trembled inside, but my body didn’t respond. The cocoon was too tight.

“Let me out now!” I screamed at Xaxier.

“I am under strict orders from Chase not to let you go free.”

I’d learned everyone obeyed Chase. Everyone except me, that is. If Xaxier said he wouldn’t let me go because of Chase’s direction, then I was trapped. But it didn’t mean I wouldn’t give up.

“Go back through the portal!” I yelled to Bryden. “Please! You don’t belong here!”

He shook his head, without taking his eyes from my mother. She hadn’t noticed them yet, or she was too deep into the spell to do anything about it. Maybe like me, she couldn’t move or she’d die. That would explain why she’d moved us from the castle to a deserted cave. She needed no interruptions. She just hadn’t counted on her right-hand man betraying her to her enemy.

Her mouth, slack, still sucked in the flames pouring out of my body. Her arms spread wide to the sides. Not one muscle twitched.

My eyes darted to Chase again. The magical ball of light he was building in his hands grew larger and larger until it was the size of his chest. He looked over at me, only for a second. Our eyes made contact and in that moment I saw into his soul. He opened himself to me in a way he’d never done before.

Please don’t move, Lianne. You can trust Xaxier,
he thought to me.

Make Bryden leave!
I didn’t care about myself at the moment. I just wanted Bryden out of there. We were all so busy trying to save each other that not one of us cared whether we walked out with our own lives.

I tried. He won’t stay away. Close your eyes.

What?

CLOSE YOUR EYES!

I squeezed my eyelids together as hard as I could. Even through the blackness, sparks shot in the air, light filled everything. The rip in my soul began to mend. The flames bled back into my body, filling me with a fire so powerful I worried I would combust.

I struggled again, surprised to find my arms and legs free of the cocoon they’d trapped me in. Xaxier’s hands no longer held my head. My eyes snapped open. Except the one candle in the back of the cave, the room was dark again. I reached my arms out in front of me, my fingers grazing the air looking for someone, anyone, to hold on to.

Don’t move, Lianne!

Where’s Bryden?

Don’t move. Please!

Jumping off the concrete slab, I felt around in the dark air. I had to find Bryden. Protect him. I wouldn’t let him die for me. I would kill myself if he did. My arms and legs didn’t support me like they had in the past. Every part of me was too tired.

I kept quiet, just like everyone else in the room. Four against one. I wished she would just give herself up. There was no reason for her to fight. She had to know she was going to lose.

Fingers closed around my ankles, yanking me to the ground. Before I could figure out if it was one of my friends or my mother, an arm snaked around my neck.

She’s got me, Chase.

A light bloomed in the cave, illuminating it brighter than a cloudless summer afternoon. On the other side of the cave, Xaxier stood next to Chase. I didn’t see Bryden anywhere. I hoped with everything in me that he’d gone back through the portal. It was closed now, nowhere to be seen. If I knew Bryden was on the other side, I’d take every risk I could to get back to him.

“Let her go, Kiran,” Xaxier said to my mother. “It’s over.”

“I can kill her in seconds. Then you’ll kill me. You’ll kill me either way. Why should I be the only one to die?”

Her arm crooked tighter around my neck. On a normal day, I could have taken her down in seconds, but my body was too weak from the ritual. She hadn’t just tried to suck out my magic, she’d destroyed my energy too. I reached deep inside me, feeling the magic that had come back. Like a pool of molten lava, it shifted and stirred, not giving any clue as to when it would blow. I tried controlling it the way Chase taught me, but something had changed. It didn’t respond to me. I had the distinct impression it was actively ignoring me.

“Just let her go and we’ll let you live,” Chase said. He held out a hand to me. I reached out to take it, but she jerked my neck backward.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Chase answered, “but some of us aren’t out to kill everyone who gets in our way. If you could step back for a moment, you’d see that’s the truth. Instead of taking the opportunity to kill everyone in your path, try looking at the world differently for a moment. She’s your daughter, for Eloh’s sake. Let her live.”

“Eloh?” she asked. “What’s an Eloh?”

Chase sighed. “The goddess I worship.”

“I don’t recognize your gods,” my mother said. “I will do nothing in their name. Lianne has no reason to live. I’ve drained her magic from her. You were all too late.”

I held my breath, letting it out in short, metered exhalations. She thought it was gone. My only advantage rested in knowing I had magic, of some kind, and I would use it to destroy her. The pool bubbled deep inside my soul. Sparks popped into the ether, singeing the air around it. I glanced around. They didn’t move or remark on it. No one else could see it or feel it. It was mine alone. My secret. My only defense.

“She doesn’t need her magic to live.” A voice called out from behind us. My heart sank. Bryden. He hadn’t left after all.

My mother scooted backward, pulling me with her. Her back hit flush against the rocky cave wall. Pebbles scrabbled underneath our shifting bodies. Magic roiled around, but I wished that my body would regain its strength. Being physically helpless was a great fear of mine. I’d put years of training into honing my body into an indestructible force. Now all of my fears were realized. I couldn’t fight back and Bryden, dear, sweet Bryden, who’d seen a drawing of his own death at the hands of my mother was here, even though we all knew he could die.

I swore to myself I wouldn’t let it happen.

“Kill me now and get it over with,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Lianne!” Bryden yelled. He took a step closer to us, but my mother lifted a hand, her fingernail pointed at my cheek.

“Take one step closer, lover boy, and she’ll be dead before you know it.”

Bryden stepped back again.

“I never stopped loving you,” I said to him. “I pushed you away so this wouldn’t happen.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he asked. “Do you really think I’m so stupid?” Emotion poured out of his blue eyes.

I choked on the tears I contained inside. “I guess I’m the stupid one,” I said.

I cocked my arm, jabbing my elbow into my mother’s gut. I only had strength for one move and that was the easiest. She grunted, letting go of my neck. I rolled out of her grasp, toward Bryden. My only goal was to open a portal and push him through it. Get him away from her and Chase’s prophetic drawing.

He knelt down on one knee, catching my reeling body in his arms. His lips found mine, but I pushed him back. I flicked my hand, creating a portal behind him. It was the simplest of magic, not requiring one ounce of the fire inside me.

“Go,” I whispered, my strength fading with each passing second.

“I’ll never leave you.”

A blast of cold ice surrounded us. Bryden pushed me to the side, gasped, and fell on his back. A dagger of ice, no bigger than the palm of my hand, embedded itself in his chest. Blood pooled around the wound.

I struggled to sit up, my hands fumbling over his chest. I pressed down on the wound, my hands melting the icy shard, but the blood continued to bubble out of him. My hands were drenched in his blood.

“Stop,” I whispered under my breath. “I can’t make it stop.”

Sticky warmth spread across my hands, snaking up my arms. She’d made a direct hit to his heart.

“Get Johna!” I screamed behind me, not bothering to look at what my mother was doing now. I had to help Bryden. “Get her now.” My voice cracked as I pushed harder on his chest. “Don’t you die, Bryden. Don’t you dare die!”

A hint of a smile pushed at his cheeks. His right hand reached up, tangling itself in my hair. “You’re safe now. Chase and Xaxier have her bound.”