Chapter 91
91
N YX FLED THROUGH the pall of smoke cast by the wreckage of a flaming sailraft. Bodies lay broken and burning all around it. She shied away and chased after the darker shadow of Daal.
She didn’t know how he was still on his feet after being so drained.
Ahead, Daal reached their two mounts first. They hissed and reared from him, blinded by panic, deafened by the blasts. Daal bowed low, arms raised, palms toward them. She heard him sing to them, like she had heard him do with Neffa. While there was a trickle of bridle-song there—all he had left—he didn’t need more. His compassion and concern welled out of him brighter than any song.
That was his truest gift.
Nyfka mewled and trilled her fear toward him, responding first. Metyl was slower, but Nyx shouldered behind Daal, adding her harmony, a blend of song and residual fire.
The two beasts calmed enough to accept their greeting, to allow fingers to be run along their necks to saddles. Nyx kept hold of the edge of her song, letting them know what they needed, to be brave one more time.
Daal nodded to her as he hooked a toe into a stirrup pocket, innately sensing what needed to be done. The two were still connected without any magic. He would rally the raash’ke, turning panic into purpose, both to defend and attack.
Nyx climbed atop Metyl but stayed low in the saddle. With both hands, she pushed fingers into the heat of her mount. She let her song shine brighter, burning through the last of Daal’s fire. She needed to be this close to one of the raash’ke to make the connection.
They needed help.
Daal could not do it alone.
She closed her eyes and cast out for one last ally, one that could truly calm and direct the raash’ke, to focus the few here into a strong army. Shiya needed to be protected—not just on the ground, but in the air. While Daal waged his war across the dome, Nyx would guard over Shiya.
To do that, she needed another’s strength and cast out a plea to the horde-mind of the raash’ke.
Help us.
To reach the distant horde-mind, she had expected it would take great effort. But as soon as she extended herself, it was there, waiting and expectant.
Nyx gasped at its enormity, its ancientness bared so nakedly to her. It was no longer a cold, eternal presence. It was a black wall of wrath, a towering wave of fury and vengeance.
In that moment, Nyx saw that it needed her, too. The distances were too great for the horde-mind alone. It had needed Nyx to reach out, to bridge the gap, so it could channel through her to reach the dome.
Its intent filled Nyx, wordless but clear in her head.
I see him.
That dark wave broke over and through her, flattening her to the saddle. Without Nyx’s bidding, her mount shoved off the copper floor. Its huge wings buffeted smoke and fanned flames higher.
Gasping, Nyx clutched fistfuls of Metyl’s fur to keep to her saddle. She sang to her mount, but he was gone, washed into the horde-mind, absorbed there. What she rode now was not a single raash’ke—but all of them.
To the side, Daal burst out of the smoke atop Nyfka. Unaware of what was happening, he turned and headed off into the fray.
The horde-mind drew her the other direction, toward the curve of the wall, following the tracery of green fire to its source. From the back of Metyl, she saw the Root imbedded in the crystalline matrix, still a torch of emerald flames, as impregnable as ever.
On her other side, she spotted Graylin and the others below, guarding before Shiya. One or two sailrafts must have landed safely and unloaded forces. Dark shadows, flashing with brighter sparks of armor, closed upon them through the smoke, all aiming toward the chrysalis, as if somehow sensing Shiya’s presence and being drawn there like iron to lodestone.
Behind her, raash’ke screamed with renewed determination as Daal rallied them, intent to let no other invaders breach his defense.
But neither battle was hers.
The horde-mind filled her with its vengeance, setting her jaw tight. Metyl drove down toward the imbedded Root. The creature had tortured and enslaved the raash’ke for millennia, forced them to commit atrocities and brutalities that scarred them deep, down to their core. It was a wounding that would never heal, an abuse that could never be assuaged, a guilt that would never end. The raash’ke could never return to their innocence, to who they once were. The Root had stripped that from them forever, leaving only one last path open.
Retribution.
As Metyl drove toward the Root, the horde-mind gathered all its pain and fury and guilt. It bound it with bridle-song. But as with Nyx’s mount, it was not one song, but a multitude, all the raash’ke who had ever lived, all those tortured over the millennia.
It finally released it in a raging song of fury. Its power blasted through the channel that Nyx had opened. It filled Nyx and Metyl, but neither had any hope of holding it.
Her mount roared.
She screamed.
The song tore out of both, ripping Nyx with it. The force struck the Root. It must have sensed the torrent coming and hardened its bronze and flared a shield of emerald fire, intent to remain an unbreakable stone in a tide even this powerful.
Nyx feared they would fail, remembering the Root’s adamant claim that only an Axis could unlock him. Moments ago, Nyx had almost succeeded, striking when he left himself momentarily vulnerable, but the Root had learned and forged himself into a bronze fortress around his core.
The flood struck him with such force that it cracked the crystal around him. She cringed as she rode that tide, expecting to crash against the Root’s impregnable fortress.
Instead, his bronze blasted away, torn and ripped by the force of that torrent. Molten metal splattered in all directions, splashing across the floor and up the wall, exposing his blinding heart.
He stood there, pinned to the wall, unable to move.
Nyx saw the confusion and terror in the ruins of his face. She read the question glowing in his eyes. Nyx was just as bewildered.
How? How was this done?
In a heartbeat, the horde-mind told her.
I see him.
In another beat, it showed her. A cascade of ages swept through her, an endless stream of brutality. But through it all, a cold eternal eye had stared back at its tormentor. Nyx had experienced the same after freeing the raash’ke, fixed by the ancient gaze, watched from the fringes. It was no different for the Root.
The horde-mind had bided the turning of ages, silently watching, observing, just as the ancients had forged it to do. To be an eternal sentinel. The horde-mind had focused its discerning eye upon its nemesis. Over the passing millennia, it had studied and analyzed, stripping secrets one grain at a time, made all the easier with the two bonded together by the intimacy of bridle-song—even as corrupted as it was.
Nyx understood.
The horde-mind had watched the Root all this time, gaining knowledge of him, possibly more than even an Axis possessed. Over millennia, the Root’s secrets were laid bare—as surely as his heart was now.
The horde-mind formed a fiery fist of bridle-song, intending to crush the cube of crystal with its pulsing golden glow.
Nyx rushed in ahead, casting out a warning and demand.
No.
It was firm enough to force the horde-mind to pause, but she knew it would only last a moment. She surged ahead of the flood and cast forth a tangle of shining tendrils of song. She had already studied this cube, learned its lock. So, this time, she did not stop—not even for a heartbeat, knowing such hesitation had betrayed her before.
With golden fire, she quickly picked the crystal lock and held her breath.
The cube flicked, flashed brighter—then fell dark.
She waited, hoping, praying.
The glow died in the Root’s eyes, looking almost like relief. The remains of his body slowly sagged down the wall, drawing the emerald fire with it, flushing the corruption off the walls above. Over the crumple of its ruins, a green pyre burned for another breath—then snuffed out.
As it did, a loud crystalline bell rang off to the side. A glance that way revealed Shiya collapsing out of the chrysalis, falling into the arms of Rhaif and the others.
But were we in time?
Still saddled atop her mount, Nyx twisted around and saw the huge sphere violently rattling, only a moment from being torn loose. Her heart clenched. She didn’t know if Shiya had the strength to stop what the Root had started—then a scream rose above and behind her.
Nyx ducked from it, shivered from its timbre. It was a cry rife with madness and power and fury. She knew it came from no raash’ke.
She turned as a huge shadow swept down through the dome’s opening. Black wings spread wide, brushing the copper to either side. It was all darkness and hatred. A steel helm mounted its skull. Jagged bolts of fire drove it down into the dome, coming from the barge overhead. The energy struck that steel helm and frazzled across the hundreds of copper needles drilled into bone and brain, creating a crown of emerald fire.
As the monster swept lower, it drew the residual green fire still skimming across the dome’s inner walls. Energy arced through the air from all directions, drawn to the helm, further fueling its fire.
The winged beast screamed as it hung in the air.
Framed in fire and crowned in inimical glory.
In that savage cry, the horde-mind discovered a name buried deep and shouted it out in warning to all.
Kalyx.
R HAIF CRINGED NEXT to Shiya as the monstrous bat screamed overhead. The nearby clash of steel in the smoke fell silent as combatants retreated apart, likely all gazing up.
Rhaif never lifted his face. He cradled Shiya’s upper torso across his lap. Her bronze crushed his knees, squeezed fire from his stabbed thigh. Still, he held her as her body quaked and shivered. She seemed unable to fully escape the tortured horrors of the chrysalis. He clutched her hand, sensing no warmth, only frigid metal. Her eyes were open but looked cold.
Krysh crouched on her other side. “We must get her back into the cocoon.”
The alchymist stared with concern at the giant crystal turubya. While Shiya’s tremoring had calmed, the orb’s rattling had worsened. Rhaif felt the shaking in the floor, in his bones, all the way to his skull.
He understood the urgency.
“Even if we wanted to,” Rhaif said, “she’s too heavy to move ourselves.”
Krysh shifted to the smoky fighting as it resumed once again. Graylin, along with Vikas and the other men, continued to guard the chrysalis. They had used the smoke and feints to lure the Hálendiians aside. They now fought a fierce battle at the mouth of a nearby tunnel. But none of it would matter if Shiya failed to stop whatever dire machinations the Root had set in motion.
Krysh grabbed Shiya’s shoulder and struggled to lift her torso, but it would not budge.
Rhaif pushed him away. “That’s not going to work. A lady should be treated with respect.”
Despite his flippant tone, his heart knotted in his chest. He feared what he must do next—not that it was any risk to her. If he failed, it would only confirm what he secretly feared. That Shiya had no real connection to him, that whatever sense he had that she cared for him was not real, just his desires reflecting off her bronze.
If I must die, leave me at least this illusion.
Still, he’d rather not die.
So, he lifted his hands and rested his palms atop her naked chest, between the swell of her bosom, where he imagined her heart would be, where he wished it to be.
Rhaif was far from gifted in bridle-song, but there was one melody that the two had shared in the past. He started it as a whisper, nearly breathless with fear. With each few words, he let his voice grow stronger, lifting his mother’s lullaby out of the past and offering it to Shiya. It was a song of comfort and assurance, of a love that would never fade.
Hear me, Shiya…
He had done something like this half a year ago, coming upon her broken and dying in the Cloudreach forest. It had taken the strength of Xan—his great-grandmother—and four other Kethra’kai to revive her back then. He had joined them, too, offering what little help he could.
But now it’s just me, Shiya.
His hands glowed faintly, a few tendrils wafting forth, stirred by the lullaby. He let them settle and warm this most tender of spots.
Back in Cloudreach, he had hardly known her. They had barely met. Since then, they had spent a half year together, most of it confined aboard the Sparrowhawk. He had found comfort in her company: in quiet talks, in silent meals, in touches that were perhaps more meaningful to him. Still, she had seemed to find some measure of contentment with him. Her smiles deepening, her touches more lingering. She often sought him out first, rather than the other way around, as if she needed him, too.
But was it just me, Shiya? Was I fooling myself?
He continued to sing, his hands glowing a richer golden as he remembered those moments. He stared into her eyes and offered the only gift left to him.
Just me…
His palms grew warmer, drawing his gaze. From her chest, golden tendrils rose, frilling into a mist. It settled over his hands, holding him a moment. Her song flowed up to him, reassuring, sharing what she thought of him.
You’re always enough…
Her bronze warmed outward from his palms, from the well of power he had stirred. Her tremors and shakes smoothed to calm bronze. Fire restoked her eyes to an azure fire.
“We must hurry,” Krysh urged.
Shiya sat up, first tentatively, then more swiftly. She cast her gaze about: at the smoky fighting, at the war of wings, at the violence of a storm trapped in crystal.
She stood and turned to the copper shield, to the crystal cocoon. She took a step, then another, no longer driven by the compulsion from earlier, only the necessity of this moment. Still, she hesitated before the last step. He read the map of apprehension in the slight squint of her eyes, the thinning of her lips.
It was not the fear of torture that held her trapped, but the same dread that had frozen him a moment ago. He answered it by taking her hand and reassuring her.
“You’re always enough, too.”
D AAL SWEPT UNDER the winged daemon in the sky. It screamed with a furious madness, entrapped in a net of emerald fire. The bat writhed and flapped and tore the air with its thrashing. Silver glinted from its skull, flashing with a dread warning.
He knew such restraint wouldn’t hold.
The bat would break free, made stronger by the wildfire.
He took stock around him. The raash’ke had fled lower, circling warily. At least the dome’s skies were otherwise empty of ships, except for the hulking lurker above the door. The other rafts and foils had either crashed or landed.
He searched below and spotted Shiya stepping into the cocoon, the chrysalis closing behind her. To the side, a battle raged near the mouth of a black tunnel, nearly lost in the smoke but revealed in flashes of steel. With his breath tight, Daal scanned until he spotted Nyx sweeping wide and saddled low. Her face was a mask of terror. Her gaze was fixed above.
He understood her worry. It pounded his heart, too. But while the monster was alarming, nearly half again the size of their mounts, it was outnumbered. A dozen raash’ke plied the air.
Still, Nyx swooped along the circling raash’ke. She lifted an arm and swept it down, over and over again, as if trying to get them to retreat from the beast above. He didn’t know why she wasn’t using the horde-mind to get them to obey.
Worried and confused, he shifted his weight and applied pressure with a knee, guiding Nyfka toward Nyx. She spotted him diving toward her and tried to wave him off, motioning frantically.
What is wrong?
Then the dome erupted with a scream that ate through his skull. He wanted to cover his ears, but he needed both hands to hold on to the saddle. The noise narrowed his vision, pounded his ears.
He recognized what he was hearing. It was similar to but different from the paralyzing keen of the raash’ke. Only this was a terror meant to stop a heart. He fought to raise his shoulders to his ears—but he was not the intended target. He was not what the monster above had been designed to attack.
It was a prey with far more sensitive ears.
Oh, no…
He urged Nyfka toward the floor, diving her steeply. He understood now, why Nyx wanted them all out of the air.
Under him, Nyfka stiffened, her neck writhing to escape that cry, but it was everywhere, rebounding off the walls and echoing from all sides. With a final strained cry of agony, she went limp under him.
Daal clutched hard to his saddle, knowing there was no waking his mount—if Nyfka wasn’t dead already. With her wings still out, fluttered up by the wind of their descent, Nyfka spiraled in a steep dive toward the floor.
Daal leaned tight, struggling to understand.
Where was the horde-mind during all of this?
N YX FOUGHT A hundred battles—and lost all of them.
With the first scream of the monster, she knew all was doomed. Linked with the horde-mind, she felt that cry of madness tear into the ancientness that she carried with her. It shattered the horde-mind. Fragile after being freed and weakened by its attack on the Root, it had been left vulnerable. And even if not, the horde-mind might not have withstood this fierce assault.
The force felt designed for this purpose, a flaming spear whetted and fueled for one end: to destroy a horde-mind.
She stared up, recognizing that this monster—Kalyx—was not raash’ke. From its tall ears, sleek fur, and long tail, she knew what it was.
A Myr bat, one of monstrous size.
Even more terrifying, she recognized its steel helm and those copper needles. She flashed to her two brothers, similarly outfitted and tortured, equally enslaved to do their master’s bidding.
She stared higher. The jagged bolts striking the steel and copper led up to the Hálendiian battle barge. The master of the weapon hid up there—though she wagered its creator did not. The monster had to have been forged by the Iflelen, by the depravities of Shrive Wryth. She knew this in her heart. Before their group departed the Crown, Wryth had still been in Azantiia, where he surely remained. The cunning bastard would never abandon his stronghold and risk the Wastes.
So, he sent someone else to do his bidding.
Sending a weapon with them.
One meant to thwart her.
A poison for her garden.
She understood all of this before Kalyx’s first scream ended—after that, it was a battle to hold the raash’ke horde-mind together. It had splintered into hundreds of flailing pieces. She fought to weave and hold them together with her bridle-song, to be a beacon in the madness.
She managed to hold a fraction together, a fifth at most. She lost hundreds of those battles, seeing memory and mind dissolve in front of her. Or worse, to see fiery madness rush through them, delivered by the poison of the attack. Those scraps spread flames to others, burning away swaths, leaving a wordless bleakness or an empty dissonant tone in their wake.
She saved what she could but lost more with each wail of the huge bat.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the horde-mind that she had needed to protect.
With Kalyx’s first maddening scream, she had severed the connections of the raash’ke inside the dome to the horde-mind, trying to protect them. But she had known it wouldn’t last. Fearing the worst, she had wanted them grounded somewhere safe before their minds were attacked, too.
She stared around, knowing she had failed here, too.
Bodies plummeted all around the dome, swinging wildly on wingtips or crumpling into hard crashes.
Under her, Metyl fought, sustained for now by a shield of bridle-song. She watched Daal lose Nyfka, saw him spiraling steeply. She risked all to save him, urging her mount to dive after him, to try to grab Daal from Nyfka’s back.
But the screams were not Kalyx’s sole weapon.
A sweep of shadow was the only warning. Kalyx dove upon the only threat still in the air. Nyx responded instinctively, kneeing Metyl into a hard turn. But she failed yet again.
Claws hooked her mount’s upper wing and thrashed his body hard, ripping leather and breaking bone. Nyx was tossed from her saddle. She tumbled through the air. Her vision reduced to flashes: the spread of a smoky floor, the shatter of crystal, the curve of quaking bronze. She caught sight of Metyl cartwheeling down, blood spraying from him. Then she spun toward a shield of curved crystal, inscribed with arcane copper.
No, no, no…
She struck the side of the turubya ’s orb and skated down on her belly. Her fingers clawed but found no purchase. She slid off the curve and back into the air. One of the bronze suspension arches rose before her. She flung her arms high, struggling to catch herself.
And lost that battle, too.
She plummeted down the center of the shaft beneath the sphere.
And fell forever into darkness.