Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts) (24 page)
BOOK: Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts)
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A wave of pure malevolent magic rolled over Kait, overwhelming the light shield she already had in place. The pain of the magic blinded her, threw her to the floor, and drove into her belly like a knife.
Blind.
Deaf.
Mute.
Paralyzed.
Devoured by agony.
She fought for a handhold in that sudden sea of horror; a single point upon which she could concentrate, a single piece of debris in her shattered world that she could use to keep herself from drowning in madness.
Focus.
She found a place of calm energy beneath her.
Drew in protective magic.
Rebuilt her shield.
Fed it, a slow trickle at a time, then faster as the shield began to buffer her from the maelstrom around her. She expanded it, let it meld to Ry’s shield and Dùghall’s, then expanded it carefully over the men in the other room who had been caught sleeping and had been crushed by the wizardstorm.
She crouched, huddled and shivering, on the floor. Blessed stillness cradled her, and slowly, slowly, the pain subsided.
Her hands trembled, and cold sweat beaded on her forehead and dripped down her nose and off her upper lip. But she had herself under control, and the evil could no longer touch her. Her vision began to clear, and she saw Dùghall and Ry curled on the floor beside her, both pale and sweating and shivering. She rose, shocked at how weak her legs were and how wobbly her gait, and tottered outside. She looked west, toward the birthplace of the evil she felt.
The cloud-smeared sky glowed impossibly blue, the blue of sapphires illuminated from inside, their light sent streaking across the horizon in tight arcs. Lovely. But the poison that poured from the beautiful light pounded at her, even as she tightened her shield. She knew the evil—knew its shape and its appearance, knew its name, and how it had come to be summoned forth.
She leaned against the cool, whitewashed wall and closed her eyes. That light came from the Mirror of Souls. They’d used it. She could feel the artifact’s imprint in the magic; she could recognize its signature. After months of living on the ship with the damned thing, feeling its energy permeating the cabin, hearing the almost-imperceptible hum of its light core, she felt she knew it better than she knew her shipmates. And it was awake, and alive, and exultant.
Evil. The artifact was inherently evil; she did not think there would be any way to use it for good. She hadn’t been able to sense that before, but now, with it fully awake, she couldn’t mistake the Mirror’s essential nature. It had been created to cause pain, to maim and destroy in some manner that she could not, from her great distance, fathom. It had waited more than a thousand years to carry out its evil. It was . . . happy.
I brought it here. If I hadn’t gone after it . . . if I hadn’t listened to the voice that told me the only way I could hope to see my Family alive again was to retrieve it . . .
But no. Down that path lay madness. She had acted in good faith, using the best of her knowledge at the time. She had done the only thing she believed she could do. And if she had not been willing to undertake the arduous voyage, the same voice who lured her across the ocean would have found another person with equally compelling desires.
Others had crawled out into the daylight to stare at the distant light show. Kait heard Hasmal nearby, and Ry, and Dùghall. Dùghall stood staring at the sky, and frightened villagers hurried to surround him, babbling questions in panicked voices. He shook his head and pointed his finger at those glowing blue arcs and answered them in their own language. She heard his attempt to be comforting and, underneath that, his fear.
She walked to his side. “We’re too late. They’ve used it.”
Dùghall looked from her to the sky, where the lights had finally begun to flicker out. Back to her, to the sky, to her. Finally he said, “We’ve known for a thousand years and better that the Dragons would return, Kait. We’ve been waiting for them. We knew they would find the Mirror, though we didn’t know how. Vincalis predicted all of these things in his Secret Texts, and warned us to watch—that these evil things were the signs that foretold a good outcome. The Dragons are back, their magic has returned, and the Mirror of Souls is in their hands. But prophecy said all these things would come to pass before Solander returned to us. He’s ready to be rebirthed—and when he returns, he’ll lead all of us against the Dragons, and we will wipe them utterly from the face of the earth and raise the city of Paranne for everyone.”
“Danya carries the Reborn in her belly,” Kait said. “But she has closed herself off from him, and won’t answer me when I try to reach her, either.”
Dùghall’s eyebrows slid up his forehead, and she knew she’d stunned him.
“Danya?” he whispered. “Danya! Is alive? She escaped from the Sabirs? How?”
Kait cut him off. “I don’t know how she’s doing, and I don’t know how she got away from her kidnappers. All I know is she’s pregnant with the Reborn. I can feel her anger and her hurt, but I can’t reach her. Either I don’t have enough control of magic to get through to her, or else she isn’t listening.”
Dùghall looked worried for a moment. “I’d feel better if I knew where she was. How she’d come to be there. How she was doing.” He sighed, and stared toward Calimekka, where the last of the lights had vanished, and the overwhelming feeling of evil had dissipated. “Whatever they did there, it’s finished now. But we have Vincalis’s assurance that the Reborn will set things right. We’ll follow his guidance; with his help we’ll destroy the Dragons. And when it’s done, the Reborn will build an eternal empire of love better than any empire the world has known before.”
Kait nodded, hoping the future’s outcome was as certain as her uncle believed. “What about Danya?”
“The Reborn will protect her.”
26
T
he horrible darkness and the bitter cold of winter had given way to a short, startling spring, and then to a summer where the sun never set. The bleak tundra bloomed, suddenly and shockingly fertile, covered with berries of a dozen varieties, short-lived flowers in colors Danya had never even imagined before, sturdy greenery that grew so fast she kept thinking if she sat down and watched just a little longer, she could see the plants move.
he horrible darkness and the bitter cold of winter had given way to a short, startling spring, and then to a summer where the sun never set. The bleak tundra bloomed, suddenly and shockingly fertile, covered with berries of a dozen varieties, short-lived flowers in colors Danya had never even imagined before, sturdy greenery that grew so fast she kept thinking if she sat down and watched just a little longer, she could see the plants move.
Birds flocked to the just-melted waterways and filled the skies with their chatter and themselves with the larvae of mosquitoes and burstbugs. Blackflies and coppergnats filled the air in clouds, and spawning salmon and firth and grayling raced into the pure, cold, shallow streams to mate. Wolves and bears trailed their young, foxes trotted ahead of round-faced kits, caribou and wixen swung across the spongy ground in huge herds with their calves at their sides.
Danya swelled, too, as fertile as the rolling tundra. The baby was huge inside of her, all angles and lumps and kicking, squirming protrusions. She waddled when she walked, fought for balance, slept sitting up because she could no longer breathe when she lay down. A small part of her embraced the changes, because they made her feel necessary and vital and somehow more alive than she’d ever felt. That small part of her was the Danya she had been before the Sabir Wolves kidnapped her, tortured her, raped her, and used her as the buffer for the spell they launched against her Family. That small part of her had always wanted a baby, and found the life of the one inside her enthralling.
But she was no longer human, and she felt sure that the magic that had twisted her into a monster had done the same thing to the unborn infant. And she could not forget the rape that had forced the child on her, and the three detestable Sabirs, one of whom had fathered it. Luercas said that the father was Karnee—that meant that he was either Crispin or Andrew, both of whom had changed into beast form at one time or another while torturing her. So the infant would have their beast-nature, too.
Had she still been human, she might have been able to forgive the unborn creature for his existence; after all,
he
had done nothing to her. But she looked at the monster she’d become, and her ugly, ravaged body twisted the joy she found in the wonder of pregnancy and poisoned it. When the magic made her into a monster, the people who cast it took away everything she’d ever wanted in her life: home, friends, Family, position, wealth, and future.
he
had done nothing to her. But she looked at the monster she’d become, and her ugly, ravaged body twisted the joy she found in the wonder of pregnancy and poisoned it. When the magic made her into a monster, the people who cast it took away everything she’d ever wanted in her life: home, friends, Family, position, wealth, and future.
She shifted her weight to her other hip when the baby kicked, trying to find a position that didn’t hamper her breathing or hurt her back and at the same time trying to find a comfortable position for her thick tail. She sat among the hummocks on the edge of a high bluff, watching the light glint off the water below her, though her body was no longer designed for sitting.
No. The Sabirs hadn’t taken away
everything
. She was still a Wolf. She still had her magic. And Luercas promised her that with her magic and his help, she would have her revenge. She would bring about the deaths of the Sabirs—she would feel her hands wrapped around their cold, silenced hearts, and their blood would congeal on her fingers. She would see her own Family humiliated, subservient before her, made to suffer for their callousness, for their unwillingness to pay the necessary price to rescue her.
everything
. She was still a Wolf. She still had her magic. And Luercas promised her that with her magic and his help, she would have her revenge. She would bring about the deaths of the Sabirs—she would feel her hands wrapped around their cold, silenced hearts, and their blood would congeal on her fingers. She would see her own Family humiliated, subservient before her, made to suffer for their callousness, for their unwillingness to pay the necessary price to rescue her.
The baby stilled in her belly, and she felt it reach out to her. Mind-touch to mind, soul-touch to soul. It felt like sunlight—hope and warmth and still, soft brightness that radiated outward from her center, blurring the edges of her pain and promising her peace. Hope. Love.
I am your reward for surviving all that pain,
it whispered.
I will make you whole again.
it whispered.
I will make you whole again.
As she did every time, she blocked its delicate touch and tentative contact. She pulled her magic around her like a wall, holding herself separate from the intruder in her body. She would not love the thing. She would not. If she allowed herself to love it, she would lose the keen, fine edge of her hatred . . . and she would
not
lose that. Without hatred, she could not keep herself keyed for revenge. And she had sworn on her immortal soul that the Sabirs would pay for what they did to her, and that the Galweighs would pay for what they failed to do.
not
lose that. Without hatred, she could not keep herself keyed for revenge. And she had sworn on her immortal soul that the Sabirs would pay for what they did to her, and that the Galweighs would pay for what they failed to do.
She rose awkwardly and stretched. Below her lay the river Sokema, and her little boat waited on the sandbar. Across the river, the Kargans worked in their fish camp, gutting the fish they drew from the river, spreading it flat, drying it on lines the way women back in Calimekka had dried their clothes, or smoking it over green willow fires in smokehouses to make the tough fish jerky that sustained them through the winter.
She watched them from her perch on the bluff. Brown in their summer fur, squat and rounded, they bounded from task to task with the energy of cubs. The Kargans. Her people now. They had given her a house, a name within their clan—Gathalorra, or Master of the Lorrags—and their friendship. She would have traded all of it for a single room in the servants’ level of Galweigh House, if she could once again be a true human.
She heard steps behind her and turned.
“We are finished, kind Gathalorra,” one of the children said. He held up his berry bag to show her. The other children nodded, and made the grimaces that she’d learned to identify as smiles, and held up their berry bags, too. “Do you want some berries before we go home?”
“No,” she said. “I had all the berries I wanted while I waited for you, and you worked hard for those. Save them all for night-meal.” The charming Kargan children, who were unfailingly polite and helpful and who treated her like a cross between their big sister and their favorite aunt, bounded down the bluff like wolf cubs released from their den. They yipped and snarled at each other, bared teeth and laid ears flat back, raised the fur on their spines . . . then laughed wildly at the fierce creatures they appeared to be, and pounced on each other. Two-legged puppies.
In Calimekka, they would have all been murdered in the public square for being abominations against the gods.
She thought about that sometimes.
She waddled down the bluff so slowly that all of them were already in the long, flat boat and seated with their berry bags on their laps when she arrived. She shoved the boat into the water and clambered in, thinking that she wouldn’t be able to take them across the river for berries many more times. Her body was becoming too ungainly.
She paddled carefully—she had only learned the art of boating the month before, and she still felt uncertain of her skills. Her taloned hands scrabbled to keep their purchase on the short, flat paddle, and her tail, which she tried to keep coiled around her while she knelt in the back of the boat, kept uncoiling on its own and striking the boat’s ribs and clinker-lapped boards, as if it were a thing apart and desperate for escape.
“Da says the hunters are meeting tonight for the Spirit-Dance, and I mustn’t forget to invite you, in case you wish to hunt,” one of the children said.
The men loved to have her hunt with them, because her keen nose took her to game not even they were aware of, and because her speed allowed her to run down the heavy golden caribou and the bulky, violent wixen, and her teeth and claws gave her the tools she needed to bring them down.
But now, of course, she didn’t have much speed or much stamina.
“Offer your Da my thanks for me if you see him before I do,” she said. “But I’m too near my time to hunt.” She’d been pleased with herself for the skill with which she’d negotiated the complex Karganese tenses, but from a few soft giggles toward the front of the boat, she guessed she hadn’t gotten them right after all.
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