Spellshift (Spellsaga Book 2) Page 9

  Garen sprung back to his feet with murder in his eyes. The second Apatten was barreling toward him. Garen summoned a spout of flame to engulf it. The fires sputtered out of existence. The Apatten charged through. Garen’s footing wasn’t prepared to parry. He kept the broadsword from tearing into him but twisted an ankle. Garen hit the ground, and the Apatten swung for his head. Garen light-shifted away.

  He aimed for the other side of the palace courtyard but reformed only a dozen steps away. He was still on his back against the stone walkway as the Apatten rushed to strike him. Garen was in no position to defend himself with his katana. He tried using magic once more. It took less than a second to raise a stone ledge in front of the Apatten’s stride. Its foot clipped the top, tripping at full sprint. It stumbled with a gruesome plunge onto Garen’s outstretched sword.

  Garen stood and pushed the dead Apatten off him. His attention turned to Aethis. She knelt with a dagger to Tarn’s throat. “Garen, I need you to decide carefully.”

  He stared silently.

  “Hate me if you must. But this man’s life should not be a casualty of your emotions.”

  Garen took a step toward her. She pressed the dagger gently against his neck.

  “I mean it! It’s time to think for yourself.” Aethis’ single-minded conviction stressed each word. “Your king leads you like a dog by its throat. I give my followers the gift of choice. You can let us leave and know he’ll survive. His worst days, the most painful parts, are behind him now. You can rest assured he will help save our kingdoms. Maybe one day you can rescue him for good. But if you chase me, I have no way to carry him out alive. Take one more step and you’ll force me to end his life. That choice is yours.”

  “We both know you won’t kill him,” Garen said. “You’ve already shown me how valuable he is by going through this.”

  “This, for him?” she looked to the smoke and flames around them. “No. Your stagnant city that kicks its orphans to the outskirts had to fall for a thousand other reasons. One day you’ll see that. Tarn is a much smaller piece in the process. But any of the Sanstric can tell you I’m quite possessive of what’s mine.”

  Garen couldn’t trust any magic around her. Still, he had to disrupt her enough to get Tarn out of danger. With nothing but his wits and a sword, he found the puzzle unsolvable.

  “Just leave him and run,” Garen shouted back. “And I’ll show you a kindness you don’t deserve.”

  “That isn’t one of your options. You don’t get the world as you want it. You have to accept the tragedies and fight for what matters most. Now, you have to decide whether he’s worth more alive than I am dead.”

  “I’m not choosing!” Garen yelled.

  “Deny it all you want. It looks like you’re about to.”

  Garen’s hands shook with rage. He wanted to avenge his city and put her smug rambling to an end. He wouldn’t let her control him. He did have the power to choose, and he would not stand there and be manipulated.

  Garen ran forward to cut her down. She didn’t hesitate. Her dagger left a thin line of red on Tarn’s neck and she ran. Garen slid to Tarn’s side, hoping the wound was shallow. The cut was clean and straight. Tarn stirred for long enough to cough once. Garen couldn’t tell how deep it was until blood spurted from it. Tarn fell limp.

  Garen took no pause to grieve. He was on his feet in a headlong sprint behind Aethis immediately. He tried lacing his steps with light, but the magic wouldn’t hold. She kept an even distance ahead of him, something Garen didn’t expect from the barefoot woman.

  She summoned a fierce gust of wind at her back as she neared the inner court walls. The force vaulted her out of the palace grounds without breaking stride. Garen tried to summon the same wind, but nothing more than a breeze resulted. It infuriated him that Aethis could take his magic from him, and apparently maintain it while out of sight.

  Garen didn’t slow down. He ran at the wall with a foot up and tried to scale it. The stones were smooth and the upper ledge far out of reach. He clawed at it for a moment, making no progress. He tried using magic again, this time to extend grips along the wall. The spell worked, and he made five more holds to climb over the top.

  The formless cloud covering Vikar-Tola greeted him. He had no way to tell what direction she’d run.

  Another explosion rang nearby. It meant nothing to him. Vikar-Tola was dead. They weren’t attacks anymore. These were the death-throes of a dying city. Garen felt the tremors of anguish welling inside of him. Thousands lay dead in the ruins, and all Garen had done to help was sentence another good man to death. He stared at his shaking palms. No matter how cruel and despicable Aethis proved, he felt Tarn’s blood on his hands in every sense.

  Chapter 9

  The explosions came to an end soon. Scattered fires lit the city as the rescue efforts continued. Garen suppressed every shiver of despair that tried to paralyze him. He stayed in motion by assisting Drake and Morgan. They searched collapsed buildings for survivors. It eased Garen the slightest bit to pull trapped families from the rubble and guide them to safety. But it felt like plucking pebbles from a landslide. The horror was beyond diminishing.

  The efforts lasted all through the night. They eventually crossed paths with a soot-covered Argus and Belen. Seeing the two of them alive was the closest thing Garen felt to relief all night. Even as the lovable giant of a man embraced him, Garen’s stomach stayed in knots. Argus seemed to feel the same. His usually hopeful eyes and honest smile were absent. He was as broken as the rest of them. Belen remained unreadable. Garen wasn’t sure if living on the streets made all or none of Vikar-Tola his home. If he felt the same misery as the others, he kept it bottled. Argus asked Belen if he could keep going. Belen silently nodded.

  The fatigue spread through Garen’s body as the night dragged on. None of the others dared complain. He followed suit. He rationed his depth as evenly as he could, but by dawn he was relying on every little bit as it flowed back to him. In between, he provided additional light or lifted stones out of entryways with his hands. As exhaustion overtook him, the latter became less of an option.

  He excused himself from their efforts and headed toward the southern gate where he’d left Naia earlier in the night. She was still resting among the fields of wounded, but he discovered Morgan had provided additional bandaging from a torn edge of her tunic. His fears of how she would recover plagued him as much as the death toll around them.

  Garen caught his first glimpse of Micah as he stepped outside the city. A child’s body hung limp in his arms. Micah passed the girl off to a screaming woman. He shook his head and walked away. He had long since discarded the formal robes of his station. The plain linens he wore underneath were coated in blood and ash. His face was smeared with both. He noticed Garen and stepped toward him.

  “We’re leaving soon,” he announced.

  “Where to?” Garen asked. He honestly had no idea. This was their everything.

  “To an ally who owes us no favors but will welcome us like family. We recover, we plan, and we will end this war before I watch that madman condemn anyone else in his way. Sarkos mistakes peace-keeping for cowardice. We will mistake blood-soaked revenge for justice.”

  * * * * *

  They were exhausted. Garen knew Drake was feeling it too as they soared through the morning sky. They bobbed and swayed more than he’d ever felt before. But none of them could move at any reasonable speed in the air on their own, let alone carry the other four Spellswords, Micah, and at Garen’s insistence, Belen.

  Garen still wasn’t sure where they were headed, other than southward to a friend of Micah’s. It made sense that he’d have safe shelters to seek outside of the city, but Garen couldn’t guess who a king would call friend. He’d find out soon enough. The farmlands were slowly becoming wetlands. It wouldn’t be long before they were at the edge of the Central Kingdom’s territory near the Outer Bog.

  They came to a stop before the ground became a total marsh. Through the tall gr
ass and the night sky, he could see a beautiful building ahead. The mansion wasn’t entirely out of place. He’d seen a few like it at the heads of larger farming communities. The strange feature was that it stood all by itself. There was no surrounding village.

  They walked up to the front door and the sounds of barking hounds echoed from inside the building. A sense of familiarity jolted Garen awake. He’d been to a glass paneled mansion to the south guarded by dogs before. Worst of all, he’d tried to steal from it, been caught, and set free. It was exactly the kind of place he hoped to never see again.

  The dogs fell silent and a familiar man in his forties pulled back the door. “King Micah, welcome,” he said with a startled bow.

  “Idrian. How are you?”

  “Confused and suddenly quite worried.” He glanced around at the heavy eyelids and war-torn attire of the group. “Please come in.”

  “Thank you,” Micah said, leading them. The dogs sat patiently by their master’s side. Argus passed Idrian with a friendly clap on the shoulder. The sharp lines of Idrian’s confused stare softened into a humble smile as if encountering an old friend.

  “I can provide a cursory explanation,” Micah said, “though I will need to save details for the morning. Right now, we are in need of shelter and some rest.”

  “Of course. You have my home and my services at your command.”

  Garen decided to put off any conversations with Idrian until he could see straight. Micah summarized the tragedy, but Garen didn’t wait around to listen. He walked past the glass-encased displays of geonode weapons and found the first open room where Idrian had pointed. He dropped his outer-garments and sword belt onto the floor and passed out instantly onto the bed, too numb to care about the ashy cloud that puffed from his clothes.

  Garen didn’t sleep well or long. The glaring sunlight woke him at mid-day. He tried blocking out the images and sounds playing in his mind from yesterday. Once that failed, he cleaned himself and traveled downstairs where somber voices were already in conversation. From the bottom of the stairs he could see Morgan, Naia, Micah, and Idrian sitting in conversation. Naia held a scrap of cloth against the side of her face. Argus and Belen sat across the room chatting.

  Micah noticed him first. “Good, you’re awake. I’d like to introduce you to—”

  “Idrian,” Garen said with a nod.

  Micah’s eyes darted between the two of them, confused. “I’m sorry, have you met?”

  “Briefly,” Idrian said. “He stopped in for directions some time ago. Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “I did.” Garen gave a halfhearted smile and stood next to them. “So, do we have a plan yet?”

  “The beginnings of one,” Micah said. “I need to speak with Amiri. We will need aid from them if the refugees are going to make camp outside the city. Hopefully, I can address matters of defense as well. The Apatten were dangerous enough. Now, we’ve seen that Sarkos is capable of…that. Somehow,” Micah shook his head and blinked until everything came back into focus. “If this is war, a bond with my brother will be essential.”

  “We don’t need their help.” Drake descended the stairs, still drying his long brown hair with a gust of wind. “And they do not deserve ours.”

  Micah spoke with conviction, but the lack of sleep made him seem temperamental rather than stern. “This is bigger than our grievances with the slave trade. Sarkos unveiled a destructive power that will wipe out all three kingdoms if left unchecked. I need you to put aside personal feelings until this matter is resolved.”

  Drake did not reply. He took a seat next to Morgan and kept his head low. They sat along one of the many lavish furnishings in the room. The stone benches were covered in linen and the seats stuffed with feathers. Morgan placed a hand on Drake’s shoulder. Naia shot her sister a curious glance, and Morgan calmly removed it.

  A low, gruff voice stole Garen’s attention. See, I told you there was something going on between them.

  “Who was that?” Garen’s head swiveled, checking over the room. Argus paused in the story he was telling Belen. All eyes turned to Garen.

  “Who was what?” Idrian asked.

  Garen was puzzled. “That raspy voice a moment ago. He said, ‘something going on.’”

  Huh? How in the soulless city did he hear that?

  “There!” Garen spun and pointed behind him. The hallway he pointed to was empty. “Is someone else here?”

  “Just us,” Idrian said.

  Garen walked slowly through the room, bending light from every adjacent corner. He saw no one. The clacks of paws against marble came from the hall where Garen had pointed. One of Idrian’s well-trained hounds stepped into view and looked at Garen. His eyes flicked from the dog to Idrian and back to the dog. He couldn’t believe it.

  Yeah, idiot. I’m the goffing hound. The voice bellowed with insulting laughter. The dog stared at them blankly. Seriously, Kallista, how do you put up with someone as clueless as this kid?

  “Are you still hearing it?” Micah asked.

  Garen turned away from the animal, embarrassed. “Yeah. But it’s more inside my head than any direction.”

  Another voice chimed in, this one feminine. Clueless, yes. But still more tolerable than your prattling.

  “Okay, and now there’s two.” Garen announced. The rest of the room sat still, attempting to listen. When the male voice started again, none of them jumped or gave any indication they could hear it.

  Cut your whining and shut me out, then.

  You may safely assume I’m trying. But if my host can hear you, I don’t believe I’ll have any choice in the matter.

  “You might need a little more sleep,” Morgan offered gently. “We’ve all got a lot on our minds.”

  “No, it’s alright,” Idrian stood with him, curiosity wide in his eyes. “He wouldn’t be the first Light Spellsword to communicate with what we cannot see. Have you heard either of these voices before?”

  “It’s weirdly familiar. So, maybe? I think it was back in Vikar-Tola.”

  “Before or after the attack?” Micah asked.

  “During. Naia and I were trapped under a falling tower. I tried to light-shift us out of harm’s way, which in any other circumstance I’d be bragging about right now. I did, by the way, save her. But that’s also when I heard them.”

  “Naia, did you hear it?” Idrian asked.

  Naia shook her head, not bothering to mention that at the time she was unconscious.

  “See,” Argus joined in, “I’d be asking if these voices or whatever can hear us.”

  Garen stopped to think. “Yeah, they’re responding to what we say and do.”

  The room was silent. No one liked the idea of unknown observers. Micah eventually broke it with a strained request. “Can you ask them who they are?”

  He thought about how to address them. It made the situation feel even more familiar than before. The sharp voice helped him recall the last time her words echoed in his mind. You can tell them, she said. Like the opposite of a dream, one moment the memory was distant, and the next he remembered all of it.

  “While I was at the Theltus Nisdal, I had a conversation with one of them. She said she was the Light Spirit.”

  Ha, you called yourself that? Ooh-hoo, high and mighty Light Spirit over here.

  I saved all our lives. I don’t regret sounding pretentious to do so.

  “That’s fascinating,” Idrian said, unaware he was talking over her. He walked to a bookshelf along the wall and thumbed through the tomes, searching for a particular title. “I’ve collected scattered stories of the Spellswords over the years. I’ve heard a couple about communing with the spirits, but I can’t recall where. Excluding the fanatical beliefs among the shrines, we know absolutely nothing about the spirits within the Spellswords. If you’re hearing their voices—”

  “Wait, he said there’s two,” Naia interrupted. “Which other spirit is he hearing?”

  “It is odd,” Idrian scratched his h
ead, “but I assume since it involved shifting with you that your spirit is involved.”

  The gruff voice laughed and pretended to clear his throat. Ahem. I’ll play along. You’re in the presence of the almighty Water God, the child of a storm at sea and, uh, someone’s tears! Hear my voice and tremble, mortals!

  I despise how excited you are to embarrass us.

  “Yeah, he’s the water one alright,” Garen craned his neck back, trying to think. Idrian produced a sheet of parchment, dipped his quill, and began to take notes feverishly. “I don’t really know how much is worth repeating. I think they’re messing with me.”

  “I see, the—” Idrian stopped writing and looked up. “The spirits are…what?”

  “In that case, I think we may need to postpone this conversation,” Micah said. “Unless these voices can provide shelter for ten thousand refugees, they aren’t my primary concern right now.”

  The uptight little king’s probably right, the deeper-voiced spirit said. That sounds more like Kephalos’ arena.

  “Who?” Garen asked, looking at Naia. He realized the confusion it caused. She scrunched her brow and shrugged.

  The only one of us not here, the feminine spirit answered.

  “Oh, yeah, they’re saying shelter is an earth thing. But I think we’ve got enough depth to help on our own. Are we going back today?”

  Micah shook his head. “I’m deliberating a more critical assignment. In the meantime, treat your wounds and conserve all the depth you can. You’ll need a full reserve tomorrow.”

  Chapter 10

  “Ow!” Naia shrieked. “You can’t poke at it like that!”