Chapter 41
Rykr
Tara and Ciaran streaked toward the lake as Amahle reached Seren and me. “Let me go,” Seren gasped, pushing against me. “Let me go to her.”
“You’re not in any condition to get into the water,” I said as gently as possible, holding her by the shoulders. “Tara and Ciaran will get her out.”
Before she could protest further, the gates to the tunnels opened once again.
Two glowing eyes came from the darkness, the fiery white eyeshine of some animal. A vuk emerged, slowly stalking forward.
“Rykr Westhaven, you claim to have killed one of these mighty beasts,” Haldron taunted. “Or was it yet another lie? I suppose we’ll find out.”
Smite me.
My shoulders tensed at the memory of the last vuk I’d encountered.
I wouldn’t have been able to kill the damned vuk if it wasn’t for my sword, and Seth still had it.
I couldn’t help but wonder where the treacherous couple had gone, or if they were enjoying the spectacle of the Skorn from the luxury of the seats.
The gate swung closed and the vuk bared his teeth, growling.
Maybe I couldn’t kill the damned beast, but I could wound it.
As though he’d read my thoughts, Haldron leaned forward on the parapet. “We wouldn’t want to have a repeat of Seren’s display of anger toward me, though, would we?” With a wave of his hand, all the Skorn weapons vanished from sight.
“Curpiss,” Amahle breathed, her eyes going wide.
I had to get Seren to safety. Without waiting for the vuk to come closer, I hoisted her over my shoulder, hooking my arm around her legs as I searched for any place that I could set her down while I fought the vuk. “Help me,” I called to Amahle.
Grabbing the biggest rock I could find with my other hand, I backed up slowly, only to hear another gate screech open. Another hungry, snarling vuk emerged.
Haldron intended to let us be ripped to shreds and eaten alive here.
The second vuk was closest to me, but the first seemed to sense the threat to his meal. He pounced, charging toward us at full speed.
We were going to die here tonight if I didn’t get moving. I ran for the tallest place in the Havamal—a large boulder near the center. Scaling it as quickly as I could, I flung Seren onto the top, setting her down just as teeth dug into my calf, excoriating my skin.
I cried out, then kicked the vuk that had bitten me with my undamaged leg. Amahle clambered up beside me as the vuk fell, but it jumped back to its feet immediately. “Stay here. Together,” I instructed them.
I didn’t have time to wonder whether they would listen.
Seren hadn’t done the best job of that already, but I’d never seen her so unleashed, either.
If I hadn’t been busy fighting for my own life, I would have wanted to watch her, marvel in the fluid, graceful way she’d taken on the Skorn, despite being wounded so terribly.
No time to think about that now, though.
I hopped down from the boulder away from the vuk. I had to draw it away from Seren.
A blur of teeth and scales approached, and I readied myself. Just when the vuk drew near, I rolled to the side of it, then reached out, hooking my fingers into the scales of its back. I swung my body onto its back, then mounted it.
The beast was more unwieldy than any horse I’d ever ridden, yet the scales provided a natural hold. The vuk bellowed and snapped below me, furious at the intrusion. The second vuk came closer, thick spittle dripping from its mouth as it assessed both me and his rival.
What the fuck am I supposed to do now?
The beasts could be killed, but without my sword I couldn’t hope to stab them.
As the second vuk pounced, I yanked back on the scales, as though the vuk under me was a horse and the scales were its reins.
It howled and reared backward and the two vuks clashed on their back legs, a tangle of teeth and paws.
I dropped off the back of the vuk and landed on my feet, then ran for another boulder. With any luck, the two beasts would at least injure each other.
Scaling the boulder with a speed born of desperation, I dragged one foot, then the other to the top and stood straight. The vuks, realizing their meal had run out on them, turned toward me. Those glowing eyes caught the light of the full moon above us, casting a pale silvery glow amid the torches.
The torches.
My body went stiff. They weren’t much, but they were the closest thing to a weapon here.
The fire itself might keep the animals at bay momentarily, but the torches themselves could help.
But I’d need to get to the outer edges of the basin to grab a torch, and I doubted I could outrun two vuks.
I might have to take a ride on one of them again.
My hands grew slick as they neared, encircling the boulder as they tried to get to me. One of them leaped and I braced myself, then caught the damn thing with a strength I hadn’t expected.
I threw the beast toward the ground, and it landed with a heavy thud that shook the earth and then it rolled, yelping as it got back up again.
I didn’t have time to think about how I’d managed that—the other vuk charged me. I jumped, then landed on its back.
Maybe it was the same one I’d mounted before, but this vuk didn’t react and kept running instead. The torches glowed in the distance. I dropped onto my knees and dug my hand between the scales again, holding on as I tried to direct the vuk toward the gate.
If I hadn’t been riding the vuk, the torches would have been out of reach—twice my height off the ground.
But I got my feet under me, crouching as we drew closer.
When we’d nearly reached it, I sprang from the vuk’s back, my hands grasping the torch.
I wrenched it free from its metal bracket, then lowered myself to the ground.
The heat from the flames singed my face, the smell of burning hair greeting me as I turned it in my hands.
The vuk I’d ridden over here doubled back. The other still thrashed on the ground, yelping. Maybe I’d hurt it after all.
I needed more torches, but that wasn’t an option. This one would have to count.
With only a few feet left between the vuk and me, I swept the torch in wide arcs and the animal paused, keeping a wary distance.
To make this work, I’d have to let the beast get closer.
I drew my hand back toward me, my heart pounding as the vuk approached. This would hurt me—there was no way around that.
I lowered the torch, my chest heaving as the vuk sized me up, ready to make a meal of me.
Then it lunged, mouth open. The first vuk that had attacked me in the forest had shown me the way they handled their kill.
As this one snapped at my neck, I turned, thrusting the torch into the vuk’s open mouth as deeply as it would go.
Its claws shredded my shirt front, leaving me practically bare-chested, scratches bright and red with blood down my torso.
Fangs dug into my arm, sending shooting pain through me, then I yanked my arm back.
A few jagged gashes marked my skin, but the stunned vuk fell back, a hiss of steam and smoke coming from its mouth.
A foul, nauseating smell of flesh burning filled the air, and then it stumbled onto its haunches, legs wobbling.
Then the vuk pitched onto its side, dead.
My arm throbbed, the torn skin there feeling as though it had its own pulse. The vuk I’d thrown from the boulder continued to thrash and cry.
I might have broken its back.
This time, a large rock might do the trick. Even if I didn’t kill it, I could incapacitate it.
Despite everything, my heart squeezed with guilt as I approached the yelping beast. My fingers curled around the rock I’d grabbed. Better to put the damned creature out of its misery than to let it die slowly like this.
I crouched beside it and lifted the rock. Some of my blood dripped down from my elbow, splashing on the ground near the vuk. The white glow of its eyes lessened and it stilled, eyes meeting mine.
Soft. Sad.
It bowed its head, struggling onto its front paws as it knelt before me.
The tongue flicked, its great chest heaving. Grey fur poked out from between those scales and, for the first time, I saw the tame animal that Seren had said these vuks normally were.
The vuk held my gaze, a plea in its eyes.
Something shifted inside me. That they’d attacked me might be instinctual, but no worse than any other creature trying to survive might do.
“You deserve a better death than to be bashed in the head with a rock.”
I stood, tossing the rock to the side.
Blood oozed down my arm. A hush had gone over the crowd again. “Good enough for you?” I called to Haldron.
I glanced back toward where I’d left Seren and Amahle.
They were gone.
Godsdammit. I found Amahle in an instant—by the edge of the lake, leaning over the water.
A crack of lightning cut across the sky, then struck in the center of the amphitheater. Clouds billowed in, a sudden gale stirring the wind, the very ground trembling.
Searing pain ripped through me as lightning struck once again, nearer to me, then flowing through me, the sky seeming to rip in two as I fell to my knees, my head falling back.
A whisper filled the wind, a chorus of voices. Not Old Ederyn or any other language I knew, but something eerie and beautiful.
A scorching feeling came from my chest and I dropped my chin, my eyes widening as a rune sizzled against the surface of my skin, the remains of my shirt and vest burning away from my body, as though the rune had been drawn by the finger of the god of light himself.
Not just any rune—but one I’d seen many times before, the black and crimson tattoo of my father’s sigil, the Everspire—the tree of life, encircled by rune marks of the gods and goddesses of old.
My throat constricted, my body robbed of breath as the whisper continued, a vision filling my mind. A crown placed on the head of a boy, too young for the weight. Too young for the role. My nephew, Ivar.
The words of consecration, spoken by the High Magister filled my mind.
Ivar had been crowned.
But the gods had chosen me.
As though shackles had been around my wrists, a great weight fell away from my body, the powers my father had restricted in me with the Seal now loose. A torrent of heat blazed at my fingertips—the fire I’d never known how to wield as a youth.
The dark clouds parted just as suddenly as they’d come, the silver hue of moonlight draping me in a cloak. The whisper that had filled my ears fell away, and the wind stilled.
The entire assembly was motionless.
I inhaled slowly, the air that filled my lungs somehow sweeter. As though I was a newborn taking its first breath.
I lifted my head. Haldron’s face was pale, his lips parted in stunned silence. His knuckles had gone white where they gripped the parapet, his mouth slightly open—not in scorn or amusement.
In fear.
He knew.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
A slow, dangerous smile curved my lips. “Don’t you recognize me, Uncle?” I said, fire swirling in my hands.
“I’m Calix Warrick, King of Lirien.”
And I let the flames rise.